Fun with Fibers, week 5: Sewing

This week we're entering the exciting world of sewing through a rather practical door - buttons!  I'm sure I'm not the only mother who seems to spend half of her free time finding buttons in the wash, finding buttons in the backpack, figuring out which buttons go where, cursing the lack of matching buttons in my button box, and finally sewing the darn things back onto my kid's clothes.  Tell me I'm not alone, people!

After today's tutorial the kids should be able to sew a button back on by themselves.  Well, okay, maybe with a little hand-holding (and needle-threading), but it's still an improvement over complete cluelessness.  And it gets them ready to sew more exciting things next week!

You can read more about the history of sewing on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewing
More about the history of buttons here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A23623616

If you happen to have a lot of buttons laying around (thanks, mom, for the 5-pound tin of yard sale buttons last summer!), there are lots of cool crafts for kids to make with them.  Some involve sewing, lots involve glue, and all of them are fun.  You can find an overview of them here: http://www.google.com/images?q=button+crafts&hl=en&prmd=i&source=lnms&tbs=isch:1&ei=UAf9TODCM8H7lweZpLyMBQ&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&ved=0CBUQ_AU&biw=1138&bih=544

A couple of my favorites:

Well, that's about it for this week.  I'd better go shovel out my driveway if I'm going to make it to school in time!