Bound buttonhole tip

These are the first bound buttonholes I've ever worked on so I'm no expert here, but I found this extra step made the process faster and the final product cleaner.

First thing you gotta do is bring up Colette's bound buttonhole tutorial. It rocks. All their tutorials rock.

Get thee-self to the following step where everything is nicely ironed.

Turn so the right side if facing you and fold the lip so its about at the center of the hole. Pin it and be sure to catch the fabric at the edge of the hole, the lip you just folded, and the fabric on the other side. Now fold the other lip over to meet the first lip. Having that pin in there makes this a lot easier since you don't have to hold two unruly folds at once. Also doing it this way insures that your lips meet in the center of the buttonhole instead of doing this from the wrong side and guessing. Re-pin, but don't remove the pin from the first lip, just take the tip out from the side you just folded and pin the same way that the first lip is held. That's how it should look. I couldn't get things nearly as centered by just eyeballing from the back. Flip over to the wrong side and thread a needle. Make sure your folds looks nice from this side. A half to one centimeter after the end of the buttonhole tack the folds together by catching them with the needle. You want to catch a significant portion of the folds and not just the get the tips, ie. the distance from where I inserted the needle to the edge of the fold is about half a centimeter. This seems like a lot, but it insures that the lips will be snug and not gape. Run the thread through and knot it tight two times. I should have used contrasting threads here :) Remove the pin from the right side. Repeat on the other side. Now you can press and sew according to Colette's tutorial without worrying that everything is going to slip. That knot can be removed after everything is sewn if it bothers you. There are many tutorials out there and goodness knows someone probably has already done this or something better, more accurate, easier. This worked for me and I thought I would share. Good luck!