Fabric covered buttons... can't be that hard, surely?

To add the final touches to my charcoal coat my sewing teacher recommended visiting two little stores near the city:

1. a tailor to have professional keyhole buttonholes done, and
2. a little shop that makes fabric-covered buttons.

Apparently they do them while you wait, which is a good thing because it's on the other side of the city and I wouldn't be coming back for at least a month.

It sounded like a good idea... although I felt that I was cheating the whole 'learning to tailor' process just a little. Worth checking out though.

So I drove across the other side of town on Saturday (yes, in our first real heatwave of the year) and I could not find the tailor's, then I got completely lost in the horrendous Derby Day traffic, gave up on the tailor and eventually found the second location to see a lady about some buttons. The store was in an alley and more like a factory than the cutesy trims shop I expected, but it housed a ridiculous amount of fabulous buttons, trims and closures.

I produced my fabric and the lady showed me what the buttons would like like, and then said I would have to come back. So I thanked her and said I'd think about what I wanted to do while I looked around... but then I left.

Yes, I just walked out of there. Not because I'd have to come back the following week to collect them, but due to a little flashback I had while I was looking at all the trims. I vaguely remembered looking in my Grandma's closet as a child, at the beautiful woolen coats she used to make, and then I recalled that she used to cover her own buttons using the same fabric as the coat she was making.

I suddenly felt like a fraud, standing there about to ask if someone else could do it for me.

So I headed straight to the nearest supplies store - Spotlight - and I bought this little D.I.Y. kit:


Tonight I had my first go at covering one of these little things with a scrap of fabric from my coat.


And it worked out just fine!



As for the keyhole buttonholes, I discovered that Bell's sewing machine can do these! So I'm going to give them a go too. On scraps first, of course.

***

You know, a few months ago I wouldn't have had the confidence to walk out of that little shop thinking that I could do it myself; or to try making the keyholes on a friend's machine. But the more you tell yourself that you should give it a crack, the more you will start to believe that you can.

And I figure if I'm going to be making more coats in future, I'd rather be able to do the whole thing at home, without relying on a tailor over the other side of town.

Hey, if it all goes pear-shaped though, at least I have back-up!

Maybe there's something you've been avoiding, because you thought it might be too hard, or you didn't feel you had the confidence... maybe you should just give it a go?