A Toothpick, a Button, and a Coffee That Ran Long

The blue shirt has had one button hanging by two threads since the middle of September, and I’ve been quietly moving it to the back of the drawer every time I opened it, which is a strange way to solve a problem. This morning I finally sat down at the kitchen table with the tin of odds and ends and did it properly. The tin has everything in it — mismatched thread, a few hooks, the little cardboard cards with black thread wound on them that I refuse to throw away, and a toothpick. That toothpick is the whole trick, and I’m annoyed I didn’t learn it sooner: lay it across the top of the button, sew through the holes over it, then pull the toothpick out and wind the thread a few times around the loose loops underneath. The button ends up sitting on a small neck of thread instead of flat against the cloth, and then it doesn’t fight the buttonhole every time you close the shirt. Four buttons, twenty minutes, and I felt like I’d repaired something important instead of just a shirt.

Then the neighbour came by, which was supposed to be one coffee on the step and turned into three cups and most of the morning. Her sister’s roof is being argued about by two men who won’t put anything in writing, and I heard the whole thing, twice, which is what happens when you sit in the sun and don’t watch the clock. The hills behind her were doing that October thing where the fruit trees are already stripped bare and the vineyards have gone yellow-brown in stripes, and we both looked at it for a while without saying anything, which I think counts as the best part of the conversation. She went home with half a loaf and I stayed on the step a bit longer, in no hurry.

Here’s the habit I noticed while I was sewing, because it’s the same one I use everywhere: I held the button against the shirt and looked at it before I cut anything. Measure first, cut once. On the computer I do it with a dry run — rsync -avn --delete cartella/ /backup/ shows you exactly what it would copy and what it would delete, and then you take the n out of -n and it does it. Same shirt, same button, no surprises. Not everything deserves that much care, but the things you’d hate to redo usually do.

The shirt is back in the drawer now and I’m going to wear it tomorrow, which is the only real test of a button.