Buttons are my nemesis. Give me a dress with a zip any day. I’ve never managed to get my sewing machine to make good buttonholes, and I can’t sew a button on in such a way that it stays put for more than a few days. So I clearly wasn’t going to make Vogue 1220, the recent Donna Karan shirtdress pattern. And then I saw Allison’s version. And all the positive reviews on Pattern Review, and I weakened. The buttons on the style are concealed, so I figured it wouldn’t matter if I made a mess of the buttonholes.
This dress has a separate placket that you make the buttonholes in and then sew on. I made a second placket, and started practicing making buttonholes. It took me about six goes just to get the positioning right. But it was worth it in the end – the final placket is actually fit to be seen! No one will see it, of course, but I’ll know it’s there.
I don’t know if the buttons are going to stay on though. I sewed them on while coming home on the bus on Friday because I was determined to get the dress finished for the weekend so they may be even worse than usual.
Catherine Daze's Blog 
As usual, your projects give me courage- I too am a zipper gal, but that dress is worth bearing up to. Lovely!
I love the pattern too, but as I don’t have an office to go to or anywhere else to where a dress like that I probably won’t be making it for awhile. For the buttons can’t you just go back over them a couple times to get them to stay better?
I am not a fan of buttons either but 1220 is such a great pattern it is worth it! I sew my buttons on by machine these days which seems to work well – no good if you want to do it on the bus though!
I’m not keen on button holes either. This dress does lend itself to press studs under the placade. I prefer doing bound button holes than trying to position them on my machine.
Your buttonholes look good! I think you may have underestimated your skills. I’m still trying to get over you bringing your project on the bus and sewing on buttons! Dang!