Slide outline for Lesson 5.8, one day, twelve slides. Slide 1 says out loud that this is a life skill lesson, and it should stay on the screen while you say it. The thrifted shirt with the missing button does the introduction for you.
This is a life skill lesson
- Lesson 5.8
- A button falls off a shirt, a coat, or a pair of work pants
- The garment goes in a drawer or in the trash
- Four minutes of work saves it, and today everybody in this room learns those four minutes
Teacher notes
Image: a shirt on a hanger with one button missing and a loose thread where it used to be.
Do now
- Have you ever had a button come off something?
- Write what the item was and what happened to it after
- If it never happened to you, write about somebody in your house
- Three minutes
Teacher notes
Image: a single loose button lying on a table next to a shirt cuff.
Debrief into three columns on the board: fixed, still in a drawer, thrown out. Count them.
Eighteen dollars against four cents
- This shirt costs about eighteen dollars to replace
- This button costs about four cents
- The repair takes four minutes
- This is the most useful forty minutes in the unit
Teacher notes
Image: a shirt with a price tag reading $18 next to a single button with a tag reading $0.04.
[Sal: your prices. Sew the button on in front of the class at the end of Step 1, in about ninety seconds, and hold up the closed shirt.]
Step 1 and 2, position and anchor
- Find the position: line the button up with the buttonhole it has to reach. The old thread leaves a mark. Mark it with chalk.
- Knot the thread, come up at the mark, and take one small anchor stitch there
- The anchor stops the knot from popping through on the first pull
Teacher notes
Image: a shirt front with a buttonhole on one side and a chalk X across from it, then two tiny stitches at the X with no button yet.
Step 3 and 4, the button and the toothpick
- Put the button on the needle and slide it down to the cloth
- Lay a toothpick across the top of the button, between the holes, and sew over it
- The toothpick is what makes the shank. Do not skip it.
Teacher notes
Image: a button lying flat on cloth with a toothpick resting across its middle between the holes.
Step 5, five or six passes
- Two-hole button: straight across, the same two holes every time
- Four-hole button: two parallel bars, or a cross. Pick one and keep it the same.
- Five or six passes is plenty. Fifteen makes a lumpy mess that fills the buttonhole.
Teacher notes
Image: a four-hole button with two parallel thread bars, and beside it a four-hole button with an X of thread.
Step 6 and 7, pull the toothpick and wrap
- Pull the toothpick out. Lift the button. You should see loose thread underneath.
- Bring the needle up between the button and the cloth and wind the thread around those loose threads three or four times, snug
- That little column is the shank
Teacher notes
Image: a lifted button with thread wound in a tight column between the button and the cloth.
Why a button needs a shank
- The buttonhole side of the garment is a whole layer of fabric
- That layer has to slide underneath the button
- A button sewn flat has no room for it, so the garment will not close, or the thread tears out
Teacher notes
Image: a side view, one button sewn flat with an X over it, one button on a shank with the buttonhole layer sliding under it.
This is the one idea students skip and the one that ruins the result. Show a flat one and let them try to close it.
Step 8 and 9, finish off and test
- Needle to the back. Three tiny stitches in one place. Knot. Trim close.
- Tug it firmly. It should not move. Lift it. There should be slack under it.
- Ends on the back, always. An end trimmed on the front unravels in a week.
Teacher notes
Image: the back of the cloth showing three small stitches in one spot, with snips cutting the tail short.
The portfolio button
- Practice two buttons first: one two-hole, one four-hole
- Then the real one: one button, done well, on a clean scrap
- Thread the scrap through the card and fill in the four checks
- I tug every one of them
Teacher notes
Image: a portfolio card with a fabric scrap threaded through two slits and a sewn button facing out.
What the repair saves
| Item | Replace | Button and thread | Saved |
|---|---|---|---|
| A shirt | $18 | $0.05 | $17.95 |
| A pair of pants | $25 | $0.05 | $24.95 |
| A winter coat | $60 | $0.05 | $59.95 |
- If every person here repaired one shirt instead of replacing it: ______ times $17.95
Teacher notes
Image: three garments with price tags next to a single button.
Why does anybody throw out a shirt over a button?
- Nobody in the house knows how
- There is no needle and thread in the house
- A new shirt is cheap and time is short
- Nobody ever told them it takes four minutes
- You now know. Go tell somebody.
Teacher notes
Image: a trash bin with a shirt in it and a needle and thread lying beside it, unused.
Whip around the room out loud, one sentence each: "one thing I could fix at home now." Cards go in the FACS folder, not home; they come back for the sampler in Lesson 5.11.