I crocheted a bunch of little bitty buttons for the cardigan. (Which is blocked and otherwise ready to be worn!)

Why not buy buttons? Mostly because I think using yarn buttons will make the buttonholes last longer. My brown cardigan is otherwise in great shape but most of its buttonholes are badly frayed. (Which reminds me to write a blog post about mending those. It’s been fiddly, and I’d be glad to avoid that work on this cardigan.) I also have a much older red cardigan with Chinese-style toggles in the same material as the cardigan itself, and those are not frayed at all. My hypothesis is that it’s the hard plastic buttons that are causing the fraying, not the general fact that the buttons/closures are being used.