Bound button holes

Since it was finally sunny out today, the SO and I did a little photo shoot of some of the projects I've been working on recently. What with him being somewhat of a perfectionist about this and all, not all of the pictures made the cut. The only shot my new Sencha blouse that he thought was acceptable was this shot from the back.

Fortunately for me, this pic does a nice job of showing the bound button holes that I did on the back of this blouse! This was a new technique for me. I've always thought that they look really cool, but I've never tried them out on a blouse. I figured that the basic idea was pretty close to doing a welted pocket, but somehow the idea of doing it at such a small scale and with a slippery silk charmeuse had me pretty intimidated. This blouse seemed just perfect for bound button holes, though, so I had to try it.

For the most part, I'd say they turned out pretty well. I had a few issues with figuring out how to finish off the bound button holes (ie, how to make it so that the button hole flaps don't show through on the wrong side, which would just not be cool). After doing a little research, the best way seems to be to put in the button holes before you put in the lining, then cut the lining and hand stitch the opening so that the button hole looks right from both sides. I thought since I had already put the interfacing on what would be the back of the shirt that I would just do them from the back and then hand stitch them from the front. This was fine in theory, but the hand stitching was harder than I thought (especially around the corners). I think it would have been better if I'd done it the other way around, but I'm still pretty pleased at how it came out for my first attempt. I'll definitely use this on other projects.

Coming soon.... the Sencha blouse from the front!

PS. My tiny tuck dress made it to the front page of BurdaStyle today! Maybe it's silly, but that totally made my day...