The Working Upholsterer’s Bible · Tools
Set out the diamonds, count the buttons, and mark both grids — the foundation grid the buttons sit on, and the larger fabric grid that pleats down onto it.
Deep buttoning fails in two places: the wrong number of buttons in the wrong spots, and — the one that catches everybody — not cutting the cover full enough, because the fabric has to pleat in at every button. This works out both, and draws the two marking grids so you can copy them straight onto the base and the back of the cover.
This is the take-up that lets the fabric fold into each diamond. It grows with depth of buttoning and thickness of stuffing — tune it to how you work.
Spare fabric beyond the finished panel for handling, pulling through and fixing off. Generous is safe on a buttoned job.
Two grids, not one. The buttons sit on a foundation grid marked on the hessian, base or foam at the finished diamond size. The cover is marked on a larger grid, because every diamond eats fabric as it pleats. You button the big grid down onto the small one, and the spare forms the folds.
The layout. Rows alternate and sit half a diamond apart, so every other row is offset — that is what makes diamonds rather than squares. The diamond width is the spacing between buttons along a row; the diamond height is the spacing between every second row, so the rows themselves are half that apart.
The fullness is the part to trust your own hands on. The defaults (about ½″ shallow, ¾″ medium, 1¼″ deep, per diamond, each way) are a starting point. Deeper buttons, thicker stuffing and stretchier cloth all want more; a thin cover over firm foam wants less. On anything important, mark and button a calico test panel first and measure what you actually lose — then set the fullness here to match and it will be right every time after.
Fitting. The diamond is nudged slightly from what you type so a whole number fits the area evenly; the “actual diamond” figure shows what you will really be marking.
This is a workshop aid, not a substitute for a test panel on fine work. Full method is in the buttoning chapter.
Read the buttoning & tufting chapter → · Fabric calculator · Cost estimator