Field Repair: How To Hand Sew A Button

Description

Krik of Black owl Outdoors shows you how to execute the most basic of field repairs; how to hand sew a button.

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Tags: black owl outdoors,nature,camping,hiking,backpacking,survival,bushcraft,wilderness,forest,backcountry,sew,field repair,button,how to sew

Video Transcription

hey what's up turtles creek here the black outdoors i'm going to be doing a video today i'm showing how to sew a button back on a pair of pants in the field so what we're going to need is some thread a needle and obviously the pants and button that need to be repaired so this is the sewing / repair kit that i made a did a video on this we're going to use it today and the first order of business is going to get in here get out the thread i want to use and the needle put that in there i'm going to using some regular cotton thread and I have this black and black thread I have this color coded on the actual little and a little holder if you will which tells me this is my working end a little black and the slit I cut into it this am i working in so I need that and I also need a needle and we'll be using the smaller needle you can reference that video i did on this whole kit to see what exactly i'm using i'm using the smaller my two needles to sew and actually will be using this larger needle in a second put that aside for the moment i'm going to be using this thread doubled up so whatever length i want i want twice that to say with i don't need much you don't need much at all because i'm only sewing on a button doesn't really take that much that at all maybe this is what i want to work with so i'll double that let's see double this up so much i'm working with that will be plenty put my knife sharp knife comes in handy thread aside thread the needle sometimes it helps if you lick the end of the thread that's why having a sharp cutting tool will work really well and make a clean cut to make it easier to thread through the eye of the needle but with some practice it comes pretty easy and then once i finally get it through I sort of pinch the thread through there and pull the hand away and now double it up match the two ends so I need to put a knot in this as a stop or not so when I go through my first pass through the fabric this will stop there's a lot of ways you can put a knot in this and I honestly feel lucky that I had sewing throughout school I believe we call like home at home economics in school where the classes there's a really way really simple way to put sort of not or just the cluster of thread at the bottom here so I do here's my you know the end of the thread doubled over on itself need on the other end I'm going to pinch hit him on my forefinger wrap it around and whines go around and I create this X and then once I pinch I'm going to pinch and roll keep rolling where I pinch on this X and I sit you can see it's sort of rolling a binding on itself and once you do that and you can grab the cluster and pull it down and then what I've done here is just had a little a little ball little cluster of thread and then I'll act as my stopping not really simple really easy to do so i have my thread have my needle here next step obviously i need to get the button and i believe it's in the side pocket this is a pair of my summer pants not really really super lightweight because i wanted to pair that at least be a little bit cooler in the hot humid months but also something with some durability so i can see where the button was originally sewn to this

they can see this little box little you know where the thread needle came through originally so what I'm going to do is just at first put my needle through here roughly where it was originally come through this side oh it was pretty far off and you can make that big award deal go through one of these buttons at first and this is just this get to the thread through it first and then what I'm going to do is sort of keep it positioned how you can try it now if you really wanted you could X this or just go parallel having the thread line I'm going to just go keep these parallel so what I'm going to do is try to keep this button stationary as best I can it first here get this first pass to really keep it stationary and pass through come through the underside of my pants once I have that I'm going to stop for a second and get out this larger needle this larger needle this is going to act as the spacer and now they'll make sense in a second once I have that and I'm going to see where I came through here it could be a little neater and we pull it through and clean this all up at the end I'll pass through what I went through the first time come through here see where I'm coming come through that hole again go down one more time try to keep it neat in the same spot go down here and now at this point what I want to do is pass this needle through here and this will act as a spacer so it will keep the keep the button a little bit off the pant which I actually give space or whenever you actually you know putting the button hole through this on the other side of the closure system if you will atop to the top of the zipper this has put space between the pant and the button you could use a piece of wood whittle down a small piece of wood something like that anything you have but this is important step because I will need the space again in this process so I'm going to pass this through oh is that twice through this hole or side a button I'm going to go through this one more time it's always a challenge to do something on camera trying to keep it in frame pass through here again go down through here again making sure I'm pulling this tight keep in each side solid I'm going to do this a couple more times through here can I see I'm not completely neat on this backside but as long as it works this isn't something that's going to be seen so I'm not super worried about it go through here go down here one more time passes through and I'll call that good for here call that good now I'm going to work on the other side here's important to keep the needle lined up come from the bottom come thru find the whole Jimmy Jam repeat the same process making sure the needle is in between what I'm sewing just repeat this process again keep doing this yada yada yada where'd that come from yada yada yada you never see that Seinfeld episode keep doing this gives me two more times find your home go in your hole there we go one more time now I have the needle coming through the back side you see this isn't super super clean but this will work it will hold keep the needle on the back so I'm going to pull this out now myspacing needle I'm going to come up through the pant from the back side but i'm not going to go through a hole I want to come up really close to it closer here see the needle passing through pull that through and pull that tight now this is called putting in the shank basically I'm going to take my needle thread and wrap around the button now in this fabric and this material that I just sewed actually the button to I'm going to wrap this around now and I'll pull that tight it's almost like you do with the lashing same type of principles to pull this tight i'm going to go around maybe six seven times not sure exactly that was now i have that now i'm going to go back down through the pant from the top with this coming down through if I just wrap my shank come down through at this point we're almost done see how I have some space in between the pantsy the button isn't sitting directly sewn to the fabric there's that space in there that's important now to finish this off I'm going to turn it to the back side and I'm going to go through the material but not the not through a button I'm going to come link to that top of it then pass it down almost like you'd be pinning pinning fabric something like this check the top make sure we're good we are pull that through but not the whole way cuz I want this to want to be a loop created with this on the back side which I have here now pulling the needle whole way through so you have traded this loop and I'm going to go through this loop with the needle like this loops here pull this is to call it something up let me trim that cuz I don't want that they're tiny little bit of pant material under caught under

like this good to go I'll pull that tight when I do I'll since down since down there I'm going to do this again not in the exact same spot come up through enough come away come up through Marie needle we're too high I like that will come up here a little bit better piece of fabric come through the top and then come back come back down so I'm going through the top side here you can see the needle passing through the top here now I can have this you know much closer to this button if I really really cared and maybe I will just for the sake because I mentioned it let's just try on there I really like to hand sew like a setup feel lucky I had these instructions and I did do some brushing up one hand sewing but I feel like everyone everyone in the world should some there are some simple hand sewing simple stitches again pull us through now I still have this loop and pass the needle through it pull it tight and this basically what we're doing here is just anchoring the font you know what we've sewn here we'll just make what is anchoring this and sort of finishing it off like you do it or not that was two times that's probably probably enough but since these my outdoor pants they might see a little bit more a little bit more use a little bit more tear and wear if you will my gullet passing through here pushing on it I'm not pass this through again

pass this through keeping that loop don't pass the whole way through go through it one more time pull it tight and now I'm calling that good what I'm going to do at this point is cut this thread cut the needle off of this thread and maybe do some overhand knots in this it's really sharp knife really sharp knife makes a difference no pressure at all put my needle down where I know it is stick it in something sewing kicks I don't want to lose that and be very very easy to lose so now I have these ends I'm just going to tie a bunch of overhand knots in this just for some added security there's one to get one more we've not square knot and just keep doing this at that point we call that good and I'm going to trim off these little these ends not necessary to keep them that length turn that off Jim this one and the final test have this here pass it through goes through nice give it some nice hard tugs make sure everything is there stays in place good to go simple as that so that's really all there is to it right now before I do anything else before I stand up I'm just going to make sure my threads back in order put everything back in my kit because like I said a small needle like this you probably can't even see it so easy to lose so easy to lose if you drop in the forest so I'm going to do all that it's really good place to keep it your mouth while you're doing stuff put my large spacing needle back first and you know this size needle might be overkill in this kit the large space you need all you saw me use but you saw it come in handy for doing this so still has a use put the needle back in about hang thread thread duct tape snap so that's all there is to it if you have any other techniques to so this sort of but in this particular button back on a pant let me know you saw how quick it was very easy with a little bit of know-how and some understanding of basic ways to anchor thread or finish off a stitch stuff like that you could just wrap the crap out of that you know what I mean to make it work but I really like to so I'm interested in hand sewing and using machine so I like to do it you know sort of a correct way if you will but that's basically all there is to it so I hope the video is helpful this video be up on black outdoors calm you remember check out our website all our contents up there along with the other social media outlets were on right now this is Creek signing out with black outdoors later turtles you