For those of us in the northern hemisphere, it’s getting to that time of year again when sweaters are boxed up and shoved on the top shelf in the closet. In no way do you want to begin crocheting a heavy sweater -- that’s almost as bad as crocheting an afghan in August, eh?  But there is one thing you can learn this Spring that will help you once Fall comes and you start dreaming of wool again: covered buttons.

Covering buttons will help you finish all kinds of garments, and even some housewares! Crochet button covers are the easiest way to match colors without searching through the notions section of the fabric store for something that either mostly matches or kind of complements your yarn. Just grab some thin yarn or thread, and a button. You may have some scraps lying around in a color that looks great with your main color. With some leftover buttons that came with store-bought sweaters, voila, you don’t even have to leave the house.

Let’s try one!

1. Start with a Magic Adjustable Ring. You want the hole in the center to be as small as possible, especially if the button does not match the color of your garment.  Start your ring a few inches from the end of your yarn so that you can use it for a teensy bit of sewing later. Make 8 single crochets into your magic ring.
   
   
2. Now compare it with your button.  If your button is small, you’ll be able to skip to step 4.  If your button is larger, like mine is, let’s make another round.  Without joining to the beginning of your first round, make 2 sc in each sc of the first round.  You’ll end that row with 16 stitches.  Use a stitch marker if you like.
   
   
3. Compare it with your button once more.  You might need another row: if you do, work even on your third row (that is, one sc in each sc of the previous row, coming out with 16 stitches again).  If your button is huge, keep on increasing your circle by repeating 2sc in your first stitch, 1sc in the next stitch, etc. to the end until you have a disc that’s the same size or very slightly larger than your button. If you don’t need to do any more rows, skip to step 4.
4. Time to decrease! Make as many decreases as you need to finish out the row.   Don’t know how to decrease?  Insert your hook into the first stitch, yarn over and pull up a loop.  Insert your hook into the second stitch, yarn over and pull up a loop.  You now have 3 loops on your hook.  Yarn over and bring it through all three loops, making a sc decrease.
   
   
5. Now bring out your yarn needle and sew the cover onto the button securely.  I usually go through opposite loops a few times, moving around the circle.  It doesn’t have to be pretty back there. It just has to keep the button from coming out.  When you’re finished, be sure the tail of your leftover yarn is coming out of the center of the button.
   
   
6. Now sew it on to your garment (or pillow, or whatever).  Give it a lot of strength, because buttons are pulled on a lot. 

The nice thing about covering buttons is that you don’t really need a pattern after you do your first one, and you can improvise using other stitches.

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