[Robin]

I made a Family Reunion dress and the buttons up the back will not stay closed. Any ideas on what happened? I’ve never come across this before.

[Linda]

Maybe buttonholes a little large for size of buttons? If so, easy to fix- sew by hand and close up the buttonhole a bit. The way I do that is: do a double stitch to anchor your thread over the top of the bar tack of the buttonhole (I.e.the stitches that go across both edges of the buttonhole at both ends), then continue sewing copying the bar tack stitches (extending the original bar tack) until you’ve made bar tack a bit longer, which means buttonhole is a bit shorter and therefore tighter for button. Oh dear, I didn’t explain that very well. Help, someone!

[Linda]

Or sew on bigger buttons?

[Sarvi]

Yup, the buttonholes are a bit too long. I’d make a fatter bartack as Linda suggests, except I’d do it by machine. Wide zigzag with very small length, basically.

[Robin]

Thanks Linda and Sarvi.

[needlewoman]

All sympathy Robin; made this one a couple of times and haven’t had problem. My Janome is inclined to make buttonholes bigger than I’ve marked if I use the ‘repeat’ mechanism on machine. You know, where it asks you, “SAME SIZE”. Now, I make every buttonhole a ‘fresher/newbie’ but make note of details beforehand. But like Linda suggests, to save time now, go for bigger buttons.

[Sarvi]

Often the difference between just right and won’t stay done is a matter of only a few stitches. I have a button like this on the back of my Cinema dress, in fact, and need to tack it up.