How to sew a button — For the first time ever I learned to sew today, putting my domestic needle skills on par with Don Draper. It took me a few times to get the knot right at the end, but the buttons are holding.

One of the things that I noticed — and bothers me a lot — is that some off-the-rack dress shirts put the button all the way on the outer edge of the cuff, meaning that us skinny guys with no wrist muscles find the cuff creeping rather far up the bottoms of our palms.

In turn, this can make one’s jacket look really short by showing such a dramatic amount of cuff, when it in fact the jacket has the correct sleeve length. I moved my shirt’s buttons away from the cuff edge by about 1.5 inches and that solved the problem. 

Sewing buttons are a bit time consuming, I will admit, but a lot cheaper than taking them to the local dry cleaner, who charges $2 a button. For a couple of bucks you can buy a spool of thread and a sewing kit and then you’re set.

Give it a try and level up your domestic skills!