Free Motion Mavericks - Week 199 - Hybrid Buttonholes

The tight buttons on the hummingbird cushion have been bugging me, only very slightly, but enough to make me do something about it.  Yesterday I settled down in a chair by the window and started fixing the problem by hand.  I had made the holes with the buttonholer, and the easiest way to enlarge them is by hand.  My mind drifted back to my school days, and I was grateful for having had an old-fashioned needlework teacher who made sure we learnt the difference between buttonhole stitch and blanket stitch.  Do such teachers exist any more?

The job isn't half so bad as I had anticipated.  All I need to do is extend the buttonhole by three eighths of an inch, giving a massive buttonhole for the replacement buttons that I have bought, big olive-green coat buttons.  So far I have finished two buttonholes, so just one more to go.  The result isn't super-neat, and I have added to the devil-may-care attitude by using a different colour thread, which will be hidden by the buttons anyway.  

Now that the fierce summer is over and we seem to be rushing headlong into an early autumn, my husband and I shall be taking a few days off, which includes a sewing and blogging break.  So there shall be no more posts until the beginning of September, when I hope to return refreshed and raring to go.  

Here goes for week 199:-

Many thanks to Margarita for linking up last week with her colourful beach bag.  If you haven't seem her blog post yet, nip over now and see more:-

If you have no free motion quilting to show, feel free to link up and show any project you like.  Here are the usual rules, but feel free to ignore them.

If you love free motion quilting, whether you are a beginner just taking the plunge, or you have reached the stage where you can do ostrich feathers with your eyes shut and still achieve perfect symmetry, then please link up.

Remember, FMQ is FMQ, whether your machine was made last week, or it is older than your granny.

Here are the very easy and slightly elastic rules:-

1.  Link up with any recent post, ideally from the last week but within the last month, which features a free motion quilting project, whether it is a work in progress or a finish.

2.  Link back to this post in your own post.
  
3.  Visit as many of the other participants as possible and say hello in the comments box.

4.  The link up will remain open for four days, from midnight to midnight GMT for the long weekend, Friday to Monday.

So far quilters from the USA, England, Wales, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, New Zealand, France, Macau, Russia, Ireland and Brazil have taken part.  The first participant from each new country will get a special mention the following week.