If you were to look at an American household in the nineteenth century —- let’s say, 1850 — and compare it with the same household of today, there would be many similarities. Oh sure, you’d have to first take out all the electronic gadgets — remove the TV’s, the microwaves, all the handheld gizmos that we walk around with — until you have the base.
So you here you have two families. A modern one and one from 1850. In both you have beds to sleep on. You have a place to cook, a place to get warm and a place to wash ourselves and wash clothing. There is a method to light the home, a manner to get water, a table to eat on and there are modes of transportation.
And now that you have the base, there will be one thing missing.
The modern home will have garbage cans — many garbage cans in various rooms and outside — along with a method to have these cans emptied weekly. The 1850 home will not.
So what did the people of 1850 do with their garbage?
Simple. Nothing. Because there was no garbage.
Food scraps were fed to animals or placed in a compose pile. And there were no milk cartons or takeout containers to get rid of because they didn’t exist. If there were the occasional tin cans of food items they were often reused or repurposed and clothes were simply recycled. When a shirt was outgrown it was handed down, used as a rag, or stripped for quilting.
Today, each person in the US creates 1,500 pounds of municipal waste a year that will go to a landfill — that’s all our soda cups, plastic bags and takeout containers — and clothing.
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Yup clothing. Today, only 15% of all clothing goes to thrift stores, used clothing outlets or are recycled. 85% ends up in landfills.
As a country, we no longer reuse or hand down clothing as we did only a generation before. We throw it away. And one of the most common reasons to throw an article of clothing away, is because of a missing button.
In our throw-it-away-and-buy-a-new-one culture we will actually throw away a shirt if there is one missing button on it — even though the shirt will have three spare buttons sewn in the tail only a few inches away.
As a man, something as seemingly unimportant as sewing on a button is kind of a big deal. It’s one of the seemingly insignificant events that add a little bit of control back into our lives.
Sewing a button is extremely easy and small sewing kits can be found in any Dollar Tree in the country — so you don’t need to worry about buying your mother’s flowery sewing box.
SEWING A BUTTON:
1. Choose the button and choose the color thread that matches.
2. Thread the needle. This will take a steady hand, but push the end of the thread through the eye of the needle.
3. For a button, take out about 16 inches of thread — I know it seems like a lot, but you’ll want that extra length to work with — cut the thread and tie a knot in the end. So now you have a threaded needle.
4. Place the button where you want it
5. From the back of the cloth, press the needle through the cloth and the first hole of the button. Pull the thread all the way through tightly.
6. Now place the needle through the button on the outside of the cloth and back down in. You are now creating your stitch.
7. Repeat in an X pattern. So the thread is crossing the holes of the button and back on to the cloth.
8. On the final stitch, push the needle through the button and material and make several small knots on the back of the cloth.
9. Cut the excess thread.
Done.
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