How to Quickly Reattach a Button in 10 Steps

Sewing a button on is a useful life skill, and it's one almost everyone can use at some point in life. So, if you need to know how to reattach a button, you're in the right place.

How to Sew On a Button image courtesy of Pixabay

10 Steps to Sew On a Button

It happens to almost everybody at some point, you grab your favorite shirt, put it on, only to find a loose or missing button. If you can sew it on yourself, you can get on with your day with no more than a few minutes invested in this simple sewing repair task.

What You'll Need

• Needle
• Thread
• Button
• Pin (optional)
• Embroidery hoop (optional)
• Fabric to sew the button onto
• Scissors or snips to cut the thread (optional)

Steps

1. Thread the needle with a piece of thread about 18 inches long, and knot the ends of the thread together. 
2. If you have an embroidery hoop handy, it helps to put the fabric in the embroidery hoop to pull it taut, because it's easier to sew that way. You can do it without the hoop, though, if desired and it still works fine. 
3. Poke the needle down through the face of the fabric in the spot where you want to put the button.
4. Then, poke the needle back up through the fabric as close as possible to the knot.
5. Drop the button with the groove side facing up onto the needle. 
6. Poke the needle through the other hole in the button and start to pull the thread tight, but slip the pin into the thread loop that forms before pulling it all the way tight. (I forgot to show this in the video, but if you're in a hurry, this step is optional anyway.)
7. Poke the needle back up the first hole, then repeat the steps until you have at least four or five layers of thread running through the holes in the button. 
8. Bring the needle through between the button and fabric and wrap the thread around the stitching three or four times to form a button shank.
9. Poke the needle through the fabric so it comes out on the wrong side.
10. Do two or three anchor stitches, which are just tiny stitches, on the underside of the fabric and then snip off thread ends. (If you don't have scissors handy, it may be possible to bit the thread apart or carefully cut it with a knife.)

Fast Button Sewing Video Tutorial

This step-by-step tutorial on how to sew a button on a garment in under 3 minutes features a video from our new Sewing Lessons From Stitching it Right channel. It shows the entire process so you can see just how quickly this task can be performed, and the text of this article includes a couple pointers I forgot to add in the video.





(I'm sorry for the odd camera angles in the beginning and end of the video when I introduced the video and said goodbye at the end. I was filming by myself and wanted to make sure you could see what my hands were doing - so I didn't want to move the camera once I had it set up and risk messing up the view of the fabric and button.)

If you have any questions, feel free to ask, and if you're interested in learning to sew, please subscribe to the Sewing Lessons From Stitching it Right YouTube channel.