Finally, the perfect buttonhole

For months I have been in search of a machine that makes buttonholes to my liking. My ULT2001 makes the most disappointing buttonholes as does my backup machine, a Singer 6235. In the last six months I have purchased, begged, and borrowed numerous machines and have even tried a Singer buttonhole attachment only to end up equally dismayed. My latest garment, McCalls' 5471, remained unfinished until this morning because it needed buttonholes.

The ULT is still in the shop and using the 6235 for buttonholes wasn't even an option after horrible practice holes. I decided to play repair person today. The buttonholer on the 6235 seemed to get stuck and the thread would pile up and just create a mess. Enter my trusty screwdriver. I'm no expert but once I removed the machine covering, I could immediately see that the problem could well be gunky oil or something.

My husband wasn't home and I don't have a key to his garage workshop to get in there and sniff out some white grease so I used the next best thing...Vaseline. Using the end of the screwdriver I covered the offending area with the Vaseline and worked the buttonhole lever to and fro. In no time at all it seemed to loosen up. I put the cover back on and replaced the screws. Needless to say, I'm not sorry I did. The buttonholer works wonderfully!

This is absolutely the best fitting blouse pattern ever. It is my TNT pattern. I'm going to experiment with interchanging the sleeve from other patterns. Why try to fix what isn't broken?