Problem
You arive at your destination and find your best outfit, or the one you wear every day has lost a button. Your spouse or partner or child has a tear in their garment. What do you do?
Answers
1 PAY FOR REPAIRS - HOTEL OR SHOP
Decide whether you can afford to pay for a repair. If so, phone housekeeping in your hotel and ask them. If not in a hotel, pop into the nearest hotel and ask the concierge for the nearest sewing shop. Check the phone book. Ask the nearest shop run by somebody who looks local. Ask in a department store information desk next to a market or Little India. Stop at any dress shop where you see somebody with a sewing machine.
2 GET REPAIRS FREE FROM THE HOTEL
If you are in a five-star hotel, the valet service might include repairs. A hotel with hundreds or rooms and staff will have somebody who does sewing to repair uniforms. It's simply a question of finding out how to get this done, who does it, will they do it free included in your service, or do they expect a tip?
3 USE HOTEL NEEDLE AND COTTON
Look around your room for a sewing kit. Check the cupboards, especially near the laundry bag, or in the desk drawer, or on the desk. The dewing kit is somethimes alread tyere. Phone reception and ask, or ask to be put through to househkeeping. If there's none already there, ask for one. If the housekeeping trolley is coming along, ask the room cleaners. Sometimes the sewing kits are distributed randomly, or only to suites, or only on request.
Once I asked at Reception in London, England. The receptionist got no positive answer from housekeeping, but loaned me her own needle from her handbag, which I took care to return whilst she was still on duty.
4 PACK YOUR OWN SEWING KIT
Keep it where you can find it, such as outside pocket of rucksack. Keep it in the pocket inside the suitcase, inside the toiletries kit but in waterproof contained so it soesn't get damp from a wet toothbrush or piece of soap or leaking shampoo.
Some airlines confiscate needles and scissors as potential weapons.
One keen sewer placed a needle behind a brooch in her lapel. I think you run the risk of spiking yourself. However, a long piece of cotton through the eye of the needle and sewn into your garment could stop the needle slipping out. Then your needle is already threaded with cotton. Just cut it loose.
If you save the sewing kit from a hotel when you don't need it, you have it on a later trip when you do need it.
Some cheap sewing kits have tiny needles which are hard to thread. You may with to add your own needle threader.
5 BORROW FROM ANOTHER TRAVELLER
At a conference ask one of the organisers. No luck? Put out an appeal. If you are giving a speech or there is a question time, or announcements after meals.
"Our speaker has a major problem He has lost a shirt button! Can anybody help?"
Ask individuals, the person in the next room. At a writers' conference, a woman I knew well had a sewing kit.
Ask the people on the coach tour. The tour guide.
6 MAGIC BUTTONS
I once bought a set of instant buttons. They are like tie pins. They are big. They are too large to go through a shirt buttonhole. You could carry one in your 'emergency kit' - with the sticking plasters.
7 SPARE BUTTONS
First look for spare buttons in seams and labels of the shirt. Then check the sewing kit. Then other shirts. Take a button off a similar shirt, or a blouse.
My husband once lost a shirt button, or found it was missing, just before departing for an important business meeting. No time to change shirts and find one which matched. No time for waiting 24 hours until we could find a button shop.
Solutions: Replace the missing top button with one from the lower part of the shirt which tucks into the trousers (AMERICANS SAY PANTS). Sew on a replacement next day or when you get back home.
Cover the missing button with a tie and tie pin so the tie does not slide and reveal the missing button.
Wear a jacket which covers the shirt cuffs and remove a button from the shirt cuffs. This works best with a shirt which has two buttons on each cuff.
If you need a button for a shirt you wear every day, you need a correct size button which you are able to undo and do up. However, for a one-off meeting or last night dinner, you could use an outsize button at the collar, like a decoration. Sew it on over the bottonhole, or fasten the two sides of the shirt by sewing both together under the big button. Then cut it off at bedtime and replace it when you get home.
Matching buttons
If you are really well-organised, you will make sure you travel with a matching button or two for all your garments and those of your spouse and children, or your best friend. (Or your travelling companion, if their shirts or blouses are hanging up in your spare bedroom the night before you leave.)
Small shirt buttons are not all the same. They may have two holes or four. They can be white or cream. They may be flat or have a lip all around. They may have a shank at the back instead of holes.
The button could be too large or too big for the buttonhole. Failing all else
Alternatively, sew up the bottonhole. And / or cover it and fasten the garment with a brooch.
No Matching buttons?
If you have no matching buttons but another set of buttons, make the two sets alternate. Lets's call the button patterns A and B. If you have five buttons, sew them A B A B A. That looks as if it's deliberate. Alternatively just make the collare button the contrast and move the collar button down to the gap. Or put the contast button at the bottom of the shirt where it tucks in or is not noticed. Wear a scarf or cummerbund to cover the odd button at waist level.
Quick Sewing guide:
Place button hole over where button should go. You may want to try on the shirt to see how loose and wide apart.
Mark where to sew the button with a needle, thread, pencil, tailor's chalk, soap, or safety pin.
Select matching cotton. (Failing all else, use contrast cotton and oversew every button with that cotton so they all match.)
Use a button with a shank so that non matching cotton cannot be seen.
Thread the needle and tie a knot in the long end. Make three stitches where the button should go. Sew a couple of stitches and check the button is in the right place to go through the buttonhole. Sew the botton several times. Wind the cotton three times around the shank cotton (the stalk) to strengthen it. Finish with overstitches in oponsite dirrections and X shape.
When you are towards the end of the cotton, push the needle point to the back so the knot is on the unferside and unseen.
If you run out of cotton at the end, cut the two ends of the small loop. Tie the two ends with a double knot.
If you have done this as a favour for somebody else and they don't thank you, demand a nice drink later, a plus point, a kiss, or just 'blow me a kiss!'.
When buying garments, look for spare buttons or manufacturers who include spare buttons. For example, Patra silk clothes have spare buttons.
When having clothes made overseas, make sure that they include spare buttons.
PACKING LIST
Needle which has an eye large enough to be threaded by the cotton you are using.
Cotton.
Needle threader.
Shirt buttons in two styles or matching your shirts, dresses, trousers (pants) and vests and blouses.
Small scissors.
Shirt buttons.
SPARE BUTTON AND RIBBON
One large spare button for a coat or tote bag.
One small ribbon to add to a tote bag or jacket, to match the large spare button.
Your spare button and loop can be used to tasten a coat, cape, shawl, or a free tote bag you are given on your travels.
Buy or wear a tee-shirt covered in buttons so you always have spare buttons. Or sew buttons all over a bag.
Designer Buttons
You can have buttons made to your own design. Add a company logo or a picture. That way yoo can have as many spares as you like.
Some designer clothes have buttons which change every year and you can identify the year of the garment by the bottons.
You could put the date on buttons. Or choose a seasonal colour.
USEFUL WEBSITES
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-Sellers-Home-Garden-Sewing-Sets-Kits/zgbs/home-garden/3063890031
Custom buttons (upload company design or your own artwork)
https://www.justbuttons.org/quickorder
Cheap Sewing Kits
http://www.poundland.co.uk/21-piece-sewing-kit
Go to the shop if you can. If you order online, there's a minimum order.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Author of How To Get Out Of The Mess You're In. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.
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