How to Sew Buttonholes – With or Without a Buttonhole Foot

This beginner’s guide will teach you how to easily sew buttonholes on your sewing machine, whether you have an automatic buttonholer or not.

Supplies and Materials

• Sewing machine that can at least do a zigzag stitch
• Fabric
• Matching thread
• Fusible interfacing (I really like this fusible interfacing)
• The buttons for your project
• Something to mark fabric with
• Scissors
• Seam ripper or chisel
• Fray Check or similar product (optional)

Notes

• For this tutorial, I’m sewing my buttonholes on a lined bodice, so there’s no button placket, just a button area. But sometimes you will have either a folded placket or a sewn on one. Sewing the buttonholes will be the same process for any of these.

• Keep in mind that you should always interface any areas where there will be buttons and buttonholes.

Buttonhole Orientation: Should I sew buttonholes that are vertical or horizontal?

You need to decide if you want buttonholes that are vertical or horizontal on your project.

Buttonholes that are vertical (parallel to the edge of the button placket) will gape more because of how the buttons pull on them, but the stitching will be less visible and they will fit better on narrow button plackets.

Buttonholes that are horizontal (perpendicular to the edge of the placket) won’t gape at all, but the stitching will be more visible.

Personally, I almost always do vertical, but sometimes at the waist I will do horizontal, just to really keep that area closed. Usually cuffs or collars also have horizontal buttonholes, and most shirt or dress plackets are vertical. It’s really up to you, though!

For this tutorial, I made two vertical buttonholes with my automatic buttonholer, and one horizontal buttonhole at the waist with a regular zigzag foot.

(And if you wanted to learn to make a placket in the skirt like this romper has, you can check out my tutorial here.)

Mark the buttonholes

If you’re following a pattern, it will probably have markings for the buttonholes and buttons, which you can transfer.

Or if you’re not following a pattern, or you just want your buttonhole spacing to be different, you will need to figure out the markings yourself.

Something to keep in mind, is that for girls’ or women’s clothing, the buttonholes will always be on the left side as you’re looking at it. For boy’s or men’s clothing, they will always be on the right.

Mark the centers of the buttonholes

You will want to experiment and practice a bit, so first grab some scrap fabric from your project that is folded to the same thickness as the section you will be doing buttonholes on.

Regardless of if the buttonholes are going to be vertical or horizontal, I like to mark the centers first. This eliminates any confusion, especially if you’re doing one horizontal buttonhole and the rest vertical, like me.

The placement from the side will be half of what the overlap is. So if you’re making something with a 3/4 inch overlap, the center will be 3/8 inch from the edge.

For the placement going up and down, first decide where the top and bottom buttons will go, because you need to make sure that they’re not too close to the top and bottom edges. Then you can measure and divide for the buttons in between. Or you could always get an expanding sewing gauge. I don’t have one, but I would love to eventually!

Mark the length of the buttonholes

Vertical buttonholes

Lay your button directly over the center and make marks a little bit above and below it (you want the length to be approximately the diameter + the thickness of the button). Then draw a line through the center.

Horizontal buttonholes

Add just enough from the center to the edge for the stitching and some ease (a little more than 1/8 inch). Then place your button just inside that line, and mark the other side. It’s a bit confusing, which is why I said I like to mark the centers first!

Now we’re ready to head to the machine! First I will show you how to sew buttonholes using an automatic buttonholer, and then just using a regular foot with a zigzag stitch.

How to sew buttonholes with an automatic buttonholer and buttonhole foot

Set up the buttonhole foot

First, place your button in the back of the buttonhole foot and close it up so that the button is snug.

Then remove your regular foot and attach the buttonhole foot. Make sure the needle thread goes through the hole in the buttonhole foot.

Pull the buttonhole lever down, so that it’s behind the bracket.

Sew the buttonhole

Select your buttonhole stitch (check your manual if you don’t know which stitch/stitches are for buttonholes). I have a Brothercs6000i, and I use stitch 30.

Now place your fabric under the buttonhole foot. The buttonhole is going to be worked backwards. So you will only see a little bit of the line you marked and the rest will be behind the needle. Hand crank to make sure that the stitches are going to start exactly where your markings are.

Then, start stitching, going slowly. The machine will work through all the steps, finishing with a reinforcement stitch. Don’t touch the buttonhole foot or lever during this process. But you can gently guide the fabric through the steps if it starts to get stuck. Then it’s done and you can lift the foot, and move on to the next buttonhole. I don’t cut my threads between. I just start at the lowest buttonhole and work my way backwards.

When you’re done, you can either snip your threads or pull them to the back and knot them.

How to sew buttonholes without a buttonhole foot

If you don’t have a buttonhole foot, you can still make really nice buttonholes with your machine! In fact, you might actually prefer this method for buttonholes around edges where the seams are thicker, or on certain fabrics (like something plush), or if you want an extra long buttonhole.

Grab your practice scrap fabric that’s already marked. Also grab a pen and paper so that you can write your settings down!

Sew a box around your markings with a short straight stitch

Place the fabric under the regular presser foot. Then stitch your box the same length as the buttonhole. The two long edges should be about 1/32 inch from the center. This box turned out pretty un-boxlike, but it’s close enough!

Zigzag the first edge of the buttonhole

Once you get back to where you started, you are ready to start zigzagging. This picture shows how you will sew: first long edge, bar tack, second long edge, bar tack.

Raise the needle and presser foot and center the needle at the top of the first long edge of your box (you will need to move your fabric over slightly). Set your zigzag stitch to a short length and narrow width. Hand crank the fly wheel to see if it’s going to land where you want it. It should go almost to the center of the buttonhole. Then start sewing, zigzagging over your straight line. You will have to experiment a few times to get the settings how you want them.

(My settings were stitch length 0.5, width 2).

Zigzag the first bar tack of the buttonhole

Once you get to the end of the first line, lift the needle and presser foot again, and position your short line so that it’s centered and lower the presser foot. Change your zigzag width to more than 2x what your previous line was. Again, hand crank to make sure that the stitch is going to go exactly where you want it. I stitch forward 2-3 times, then a reverse stitch 2-3 times.

(Stitch length stays the same, my width was 5)

Repeat for the second edge and bar tack

Then continue in the same way for the last two lines of your box and you’re done stitching! I find it works fine to just snip the tails, but you could pull them to the wrong side and tie them off before snipping.

This picture shows the first long edge and bar tack done, with the second line of stitching centered and ready to be zigzagged.

It takes a little practice, but once you have it figured out and your settings written down, you can get through these pretty quickly! It really is a good skill to have, even if you do have an automatic buttonholer.

You might notice that there’s a pucker on the left side of the buttonhole. That’s because I interfaced before I had decided to do a horizontal buttonhole there. So, I should have made the interfacing wider.

Cut the buttonholes

You can cut the buttonholes with a seam ripper, scissors, or, my personal favorite, a chisel.

You can also put some Fray Check along the buttonholes to keep them from fraying. It’s definitely not necessary, but if you don’t use it you will have some frays. I use it for my Etsy makes to be more professional. I find it works best to apply it before cutting, on both sides if needed (you want it to soak through).

Seam ripper

To use the seam ripper, place a pin on one end so that you don’t cut into your bar tack. Then just slide the seam ripper along to open it.

Scissors

To use scissors, fold in half and make a snip, then flatten and cut to each end.

Chisel

A chisel will give you the best results, so if you’re going to be cutting a lot of buttonholes, it’s worth it to get one! I used to have this set, which worked great, but now I just use one of my husband’s Irwin chisels and it’s even better. To use the chisel, you need to have a block of wood underneath. Simply place the chisel over the buttonhole and rock back and forth.

If the buttonhole is shorter than the chisel, place it halfway over the edge of the block and cut, then turn it and do the other half.

All done sewing your buttonholes!

And you’re done! Here is what it will look like with the buttons. See how they’re nicely lined up, even though there are vertical and horizontal orientations.

Now if you don’t know how to sew buttons on, you can check out my post on how to sew a button with a sewing machine here.

Thanks for following along 🙂 Have you sewn buttonholes before? Which method did you use? Let me know in the comments below!