Mending a Button that Ripped Off and Left a Hole

Sometimes buttons fall off. No biggie, just sew them back on. But then sometimes buttons rip off and leave a big hole in the fabric. It can appear hopeless, but it’s NOT! That’s the kind of mending I’m going to show you in this post.

I made this short video for my Instagram that shows just how easy it is to fix this kind of hole. So watch it and after we’ll go over step by step what my process was.

Mending Steps

As you can see in the video, it’s a really simple process that goes a long way.

I not only mended the hole, but I used the same technique on the rest of the buttons to reinforce them. I would hate for the same thing to happen again. This kind of reinforcement it great for older, well-loved garments that you just want to give that extra boost.

1. Cut pieces of fusible interfacing slightly (barely) smaller than the buttons. (2 per button)
2. Iron the pieces onto the garment where the buttons belong. One on each side of the fabric.
3. Once fused, set your sewing machine to a very small straight stitch and stitch forward and backward ALL OVER THE PLACE. seriously, this doesn’t have to look tidy. Cover that little circle of interfacing with stitches. As you can see in the video, there was no method to my stitching. Just go crazy. Back and forth. Back and forth.
4. Sew the buttons over top of the interfacing patches as normal.
5. Celebrate saving a damaged garment and wear out it with a big smile on your face.

And that’s really it. How cool is that mending trick?!

Mend it Don’t Toss it

Any time a clothing item is damaged I will always try to fix it and if it can’t be (isn’t worth being) fixed then I will cut it up and make something new. If you haven’t noticed, that’s kind of my mission here haha. Let’s keep reducing waste together!

Check out my collection of items made from repurposed and salvaged material: HERE

And for another quick sewing tutorial, check out THIS POST