Buttonhole spacing on a knitted front band
Enter the stitches in your band, how many buttonholes you want and how many stitches each one takes. The row appears here, with as many stitches before the first as after the last.
Leave empty to get half a gap at each end. With two or more buttonholes, both ends get the same. With one, this many stitches come before it and the rest after.
- k8, cast off 2
- *k15, cast off 2*, repeat from * to * 6 times in total
- k8
106 sts on the needle in total
On the next row, cast on 2 sts over each buttonhole, so you are back to 120 sts.
The band from the right side: each mark is a stitch, the red ones are cast off for the buttonholes.
Tick off each buttonhole as you knit in KnitBuddy, and count the rows between them. On iPhone and iPad the calculation keeps in your project.
How to work it out yourself
Example: a front band of 120 stitches with 7 buttonholes of 2 stitches each, and the ends left to the calculator.
- Each buttonhole (
cast off 2) uses 2 stitches, so 7 buttonholes use 14. That leaves 120 − 14 = 106 stitches to knit plain. - The 106 stitches are shared out over 8 gaps: before the first buttonhole, between them and after the last. Each end gets half a gap, 106 ÷ 14 ≈ 8 stitches.
- The middle gets the rest: 106 − 16 = 90 stitches in 6 gaps, which is 15 stitches between each pair of buttonholes.
- The buttonhole row reads as below, and you have 106 stitches until the next row.
k8, cast off 2 *k15, cast off 2*, repeat from * to * 6 times in total k8 106 sts on the needle in total
On the next row, cast on 2 sts over each buttonhole, so you are back to 120 sts. If your pattern wants a fixed number of stitches at each end, type it in Stitches at each end.
Questions
- How many stitches go before the first buttonhole?
- Half a gap: the plain stitches divided by twice the number of buttonholes, rounded. If your pattern wants a set number, type it in Stitches at each end and the rest is shared out between the buttonholes.
- What do I do on the next row?
- Cast on as many stitches over each buttonhole as you cast off. Then you are back to the number of stitches you started with.
- How many stitches should a buttonhole be?
- Usually 2 or 3, depending on the button and the yarn. Try one on your swatch with the button: it should go through snugly, because buttonholes stretch with wear.
- Why is there a maximum number of buttonholes?
- Each buttonhole needs at least one stitch on each side, or the holes run into each other. So the band must hold the buttonholes, one stitch between each pair and one at each end.