Horizontal One-Row Buttonhole

Hi, this is Whitney from Purl Soho, and I’m going to show you how to do a Horizontal One-Row Buttonhole. This technique uses a Slip Stitch Bind Off and Cable Cast On to create a very stable horizontal buttonhole over just one row. This is also how you create the decorative keyhole openings in Ainur Berkimbay’s Aperture Pullover pattern, with buttonholes of varying widths making a beautiful lattice-like yoke. Okay, let’s learn how to do it.

Step one is to bind off the stitches for the buttonhole. Start by slipping one stitch purlwise with the yarn in front. Next, slip one stitch purlwise with the yarn in back, and then pass that first stitch over the second stitch, just like a normal bind off, and you’ve bound off one stitch. So continue to bind off as required for the buttonhole in your pattern. Here we’re going to work a four-stitch buttonhole, so we’ll repeat three more times, slipping a stitch purlwise with the yarn in back and passing that first stitch over and off the needle. That’s two.

I’m doing this nice and loosely like you always do for a bind off so that your buttonhole doesn’t end up being too taut. That’s number three and here is number four. I’m slipping that last stitch and passing this stitch over and off the needle. 

So once all of the buttonholes have been bound off, you just take that remaining stitch from your last bind off and slip it from the right needle to the left needle like this. Then turn your work; the wrong side is facing me, and the working yarn is now coming from the left side of the buttonhole, ready for step two. 

Step two is to cast on stitches for the top of the buttonhole. So with the wrong side of your work facing you, move the yarn to the back of the work, and use a Cable Cast On to cast on one stitch more than you bound off in the last step. To work a Cable Cast On, insert the right needle between the first and second stitch on the left needle, right in between the stitches like that. Wrap the working yarn like you normally would for a knit stitch and pull the stitch through. Now instead of allowing this stitch to drop off the left needle, place the stitch that’s on your right needle over onto your left needle without twisting it, just like that. That’s one stitch cast on. 

Let’s do that again. I’m inserting the needle between the first two stitches like that, wrapping the working yarn, pulling a stitch through, and placing the stitch on the left needle. Now you want to do this quite loosely so that when you insert your right needle, it doesn’t have to struggle like I did on that first stitch and can easily pass between those first two stitches. So I’ve cast on three stitches. Remember, I bound off four, so I’m going to cast on one more than four; I’m going to cast on five stitches. So here’s my last one, inserting the needle between the first two stitches, wrapping the working yarn, pulling a stitch through, and placing it on the left needle. So I have five cast on stitches to form the top of the buttonhole, and now I’m going to turn my work once again, so the right side is facing me, ready for the third and final step. 

Step three is to close the buttonhole. The first thing to do is move your yarn to the back of your work, and now slip one stitch purlwise from your left needle to your right needle. Now pick up that last cable cast on stitch and pass it over that slip stitch, just like a bind off. And now pass that resulting stitch from your right needle back to the left needle. That’s it. You’ve closed your buttonhole and you’re ready to keep knitting. 

So you just knit this stitch and keep going to the end of your row. Once you’ve knit for a while, you can see how your buttonhole sits nice and tidily in your knitting. It’s pretty easy to make. You do it over just one row and now you can make a horizontal buttonhole with any number of stitches to accommodate a button of any size and it’s going to look quite beautiful.