How to Sew Doll Clothes: Using Buttons

Sometimes I can be a bit impatient when it comes time to choose the buttons for my doll clothes.

However it usually pays to take your time and try different combinations.

Sometimes several different colours and sizes look good but if you try several colours and sizes often one combination will stand out as looking great.

You may also need to try different spacing and 5 buttons or 6.

I always sew on my buttons with the machine and the button foot. You can see my blog post tutorial here.

Heart Buttons

I tried a couple of different buttons before deciding on the hearts for this blouse. They just stood out over the regular buttons.

You can see that the spacing is quite wide. This is 7/8" from centre to centre of each button. I didn't want the buttons to overwhelm the rest of the outfit, just add to it. I'm pretty sure I bought these heart buttons in a bag of several different sized hearts from my discount craft store, Spotlight.

Decision points:

1. must be red as a feature since I didn't do the piping on the collar
2. looking for small buttons. The hearts were the right size
3. spaced them so the bottom one fell above the skirt band rather than just on it.

Matching Pink Buttons

These buttons are meant to blend in with the blouse. I just had to decide on the size. I ended up with these tiny 1/4" ones because I like the solid quality of them. I have other thinner ones but I thought these added to the vintage look.

I have placed them 3/4" apart by mistake. I meant to do them 7/8" like the hearts but as you can see they look OK. Maybe a little bit busy looking and detracts from the other features. Because the buttons are small it doesn't look out of place.

Decision points:

1. must match the blouse fabric
2. small so they don't stand out too much
3. thick and glossy rather than thin and translucent because I thought they looked old fashioned
4. spacing was meant to be 7/8" so they didn't look too busy.

When I did the skirt I tried different shades of pink buttons as well as different sizes. I loved these dark ones with the 4 holes and it took me ages to find a matching pair in my button bag collection.

Decision points:

1. dark colour to stand out against the pale pink in the skirt
2. medium size so they have the same dramatic affect as the check in the skirt. They stand out almost equally.
3. 4 holes because it looks kind of vintage and more like suspender buttons than blouse buttons.

Happy Sewing,
Val

Valspierssews
Tinker, Tailor, Doll Dress Maker

How to Sew Doll Clothes: Sewing Small Button Holes

This tutorial is for the automatic button hole that uses this button hole foot.

Where do you start?

Study your fabric

The first thing you need to do is decide how to strengthen the place where you want the button holes.

• If it is down a front or back facing - 2 layers of fabric - you will need interfacing. Attach a strip of interfacing on the wrong side of the facing before sewing your project.
• Another way to interface is to place non fusible interfacing behind the button hole when you sew it then trim the interfacing away.
• If it is a folded shirt band like the one in my Boy Friend Shirt pattern the 3 layers of fabric should be enough
• If it is on a waist band you may need to use interfacing but also make sure the seam allowances are trimmed away from the area of the button hole.

Choose you buttons

See my How to blog post about buttons to help you decide on a size.

Preparation

Stitch width

• When sewing regular automatic button holes you set the stitch width quite wide. My machine should be set on the widest stitch width of 7.
• I discovered that setting the stitch width at 4.5 makes each leg of the button hole narrower. I experimented with 4 but decided on 4.5.
• The button hole is neat at 4.5 and not chuncky looking. It is also wide enough to stop the edges fraying easily.

Guesstimate

• Unfortunately there is no other way to get the right size button hole than to guess and check.
• The easiest way to explain how I set my button hole foot is to say that from the closed position I moved the slider 4 clicks.

• You can't use the button to set the slider because the small buttons just fall out.

• If you are using a 1cm button you can place it in the foot. If you don't mind this size then it is by far the simplest way to go. You don't have to guess.

Test

• Once your foot is set attach it to the machine and pull down the stop lever.
• Prepare a test piece using the same number of fabric layers as your garment - 2 plus interfacing or 3 layers of fabric.
• Stitch a test button hole. I did several tests.

Cutting the button hole

• Since the button hole is so small it is best to use pointed scissors or you button hole slasher to make a start at the centre.
• Use sharp pointed scissors to snip towards each end from the centre. Don't snip too close to the end. Leave a few threads un cut.

Check the button goes through

• Push the button through to check. Adjust the clicks on the button hole foot slider is needed and do another test button hole.

The Real Thing

The button holes

Once you have done your test and are happy with the result it is time to work on the garment.

• Position your buttons and put a pin at the centre of the button position on the button band - the doll's left hand side. Leave these pins in while you sew the button holes.
• Line up the button hole band next to the button band. Line up the centre of the test button hole with the pin and place a pin in the button hole band at the bottom of the test button hole.
• The button hole stitches from bottom to top so you need to know where to start.
• In the photo I am working on the cuff. Because it is 2 layers of fabric I pinned a piece of interfacing behind it. I have marked the position of the bottom of the button hole with a pin.

• It is best to mark all the button holes now then draw a line about the length of the button hole, above the pin, perpendicular to the band. Leave the pins in because it is much easier to see the pin than the end of the drawn line.
• The photo is of the cuff. I have drawn a line to help me centre the button hole and keep it straight.

• I say to draw a line because I found that the shirt tended to slide sideways without me knowing and the button hole was off centre.

The buttons

• Using the pins you had to show the position of the buttons, tape the buttons on and use your button foot to stitch them down.
• In this photo you can see I had some trouble centring some of the button holes. That is when I decided to draw the line. This yellow shirt is my first attempt at tiny button holes on a garment. They are not perfect yet.

• The plaid shirt was my second go at button holes. These ones had 1cm buttons and they seem to be a lot neater. I will persevere with the tiny ones. It won't be long before they are perfect.

I realise that I am new to doing small button holes and the photos I took didn't exactly match the steps I finally settled on but they give you a good idea of how they will turn out and I hope that you can see that it is mainly a matter of giving it a go.

Happy Sewing,

Val

How to Sew Doll Clothes: Sewing Small Buttons on Doll Clothes

When you sew lots of buttons on doll clothes you want an easy and fast way to do it. If you don't like hand sewing you want a way to use your machine for those tiny buttons.

I sew doll clothes for 18" dolls and 20" dolls.

Selecting Your Buttons

Size

• Choose small buttons to suit the scale of your garment
• I use 6mm (1/4") buttons most often
• I have also used 10mm (3/8") buttons on garments for the Australian Girl Doll (20")
• 12mm (1/2") buttons are just a bit too big but you could easily use them on the back of a dress.

6mm (1/4") buttons on the shirts for the 18" doll

10mm (3/8") buttons on the shirt for the 20" doll

12mm (1/2") buttons on the 20" and 18" shirt.

Comparing the size.

Colour

• The choice of colour determines if your buttons show up or not
• Generally if you are going to the trouble of putting on tiny buttons you want them to feature
• On the plaid shirts above the red buttons stand out much better than the black buttons
• You could use white buttons on the pink check shirt to make them show up more
• Sometimes you just have to use what you have

Amount

• The smaller the button the more you can fit on obviously
• How far down the opening you go can affect the look. You might also want to leave the waist button free for skirts to fit around the waist better.

Spacing

• I like the look of lots of buttons closely spaced as on the pink check shirt
• These ones are spaced 2cm (3/4") apart
• On the floral shirt I made button holes and didn't want them to be too crowded but I probably could have spaced them for 5 buttons rather than 4
• The spacing for the floral shirt is 3.2cm (1/14")

On this shirt for the Australian Girl Doll (20") the 10mm (3/8")  buttons
look good with the 3.2cm (1 1/4") spacing

Prep

• Use small strips of sticky tape to secure each button
• Try to keep it away from the holes
• To attach the tape lay the button on the table then stick on the tape. List the button and put it in place on the garment.

Prep Update

6 years later and I have made some slight changes to the buttons prep.

Now I lay all the buttons so the holes run from top to bottom rather than sideways.

I still use sticky tape but I put one long strips over all the buttons.

I sew them on one at a time still but I can now work sideways. This stops the buttons getting in the way of the foot.

Sewing

• Attach your button foot

• Set the stitch width to zero

• Select straight stitch to start
• Adjust the width so the needle goes down into the left hand hole.

• Make several stitches to tie off. Lift the needle.

• Switch to zig zag stitch and crank by hand until the needle goes into the right hand hole. You may need to adjust the width a fraction.

• Stitch side to side 3 or 4 times. Lift the needle.

• Switch back to straight stitch and make 2 or 3 stitches to tie off.

If you have several buttons just move to the next one and do it again.

Buying Buttons

I have bought buttons from my quilt shop and from Etsy shops.
My quilt shops don't always have what I want so I shop on Etsy more often.

The shop I bought these buttons from doesn't sell much any more (April 2018)


These 6.5cm buttons look great. They are not exactly cheap but then again they don't look cheap. They are thick and sturdy and easy to handle.

These 6mm buttons are very thin but also very cheap. They are great for using lots of on my sample items.
They are still quite sturdy and easy to sew.

I would love to hear from other doll clothes makers who have any good ideas for sewing buttons or maybe a good button supplier to share. Also feel free to ask questions.

Finally, I had a go at making a video of sewing on my buttons. It is not perfect but I guess that just makes improvement easier :)

Happy Sewing
Val

Sewing Buttons on with your Machine.

I posted once before that I use sticky tape to hold my buttons in place while I sew them on with the sewing machine but I didn't go through the process. It is not hard, but maybe a few simple steps will encourage someone else to give it a go and save themselves time and effort - important commodities these days.

1. Sticky tape the first button in place. Depending on the garment I will sometimes tape on all the buttons then just move from button to button starting and finishing each button. I then clip the threads and remove the sticky tape.

2. Attach your button foot.

3. Put the button under and lower the presser foot.
4. Adjust the stitch length to zero.

5. On straight stitch mode adjust the stitch width so the needle goes into the left hand hole cleanly. Make about 4 stitches into the left hand hole.

6. Lift the presser foot and change the mode to zig zag.

7. Turn the crank by hand to check that the needled goes into both holes cleanly.

Stitch about 8 zig zags finishing with the needle about to go into the left hand hole.

8. Lift the presser foot and change to straight stitch mode. Lower the foot and check the needle goes into the left hand hole cleanly. Make about 4 stitches to finish off.

9. Sticky tape the next button in place. The process should go a bit quicker this time since the stitch width probably won't need changing.
10. When doing three buttons I stitch on the top and bottom ones first then place the middle one by eye.

This is the latest pattern I am working on. It works as a vest, a button up dress, a top and a pinny. This one is the pinny version. It is amazing what a little bit of embellishment can do to liven up your doll clothes. I had the contrast band around the hemline planned but the buttons were just something I found in my stash and realised they would work perfectly. I even forgot to change the thread to blue to match the buttons and they still look good.

Keep that button foot handy.

Cheers,
Val

Tame Those Tiny Buttons

I was going crazy trying to keep the buttons still while I sewed them. I like to sew them on the sewing machine with the button foot and putting a bit of sticky tape just above or below the holes works perfectly.
I taped all these buttons on at once then hand sewed them all at once running the thread down behind between the buttons. I wasn't sure how the knit would go on the machine.
For woven fabrics I tape and sew one button at a time on the sewing machine.

This is not an original idea but I have only seen it published once so I thought I would share it now I know it really works.

Cheers,
Val