I'm not in love with making button holes. My machine has an "automatic" button hole feature... it doesn't work. It likes to stop about mid-way through stitching a bar and finish the end tack. Doesn't please me.

Howww...ever... with help from both my mother-in-law and my friend Janis, I have made peace with the dreaded things and come up with a way that works for me. It's pretty stinkin' easy... And since I am pretty sure there are legions of people who avoid buttonholes by using scary things like (dare I say it?) Velcro  ... I thought I'd share...This is what I do:

First I mark where I'd like the button hole with a dot at each end and a line through the middle. I use pen because I'm going to sew over it anyways and it's really easy to see when it's in the machine:

 

Next I set my machine to a zig-zag stitch & I shorten the length so it's like a satin stitch. First I'm going to make the tacks at each end, so I do a somewhat wide stitch. This is what it looks like on my machine:

Then I make a tack at each end. I'm very careful to line up my machine so that the line I drew is on the center line, and my needle is going to come down on the dot.

Then I sew down a bar tack at over the dot. I do about six stitches forward and then six back:

I repeat this on the other dot.

Then I sew the bars down the sides. First I set my machine to a more narrow stitch keeping it at the nice satin stitch length that I've got it at... on my machine (you'll have to play around with the settings on your machine to get it just right... what you want is for the side bars to nicely fit between your two end tacks with a tiny space to cut the fabric between the two bars... does that make sense?... you'll tell me if it doesn't right?):

This is where it gets a little tricky. You don't want your button hole to be too wide, but you of course don't want it to be so narrow that you cut through your threads when you make the hole. So, this is my advice: I place the needle just barely to the side of my line. I try not to be too afraid of getting the two bars too close because it seems like when I do that they end up so far apart the button hole looks like a big gaping crater. I sew from bar to bar backstitching at each end.

You can just barely see that line I drew. Now I just repeat it on the other side. Remember stay within the width of your top and bottom tacks and don't be afraid about getting too close.

Here's what it looks like after the other side is finished:

Now I trim my threads and using a tiny scissors, I cut the fabric in the middle. Be careful not to cut the threads on each side... but if you do, simply go back over them with the needle going through the hole as you sew. It's a little heavier looking, but does the trick.

Voila... you have a button hole.