Essential Sewing Skills: Repair Clothes & Save Money

One of my family's most enduring heirlooms is my grandma's sewing box. It's blue, mostly wicker but with blue floral cloth on the top and lining the insides, and it's stuffed with needles, thimbles, different kinds and colors of thread, tiny scissors, tape measure, different lengths of elastic… Everything you could possibly need to fix the wear and tear of living. While I took it upon myself to learn how to sew on a button, redo a seam, and add a zipper (all by hand), I have plenty of friends who either never took home economics or has never bothered to learn to fix their clothes. (One recently asked me, "What's a thimble?") This is for y'all:

SEWING ON A BUTTON

FIXING A RIP

FIXING/ADDING A HEM

TAKING OUT A FOOD STAIN

TAKING OUT A BLOOD STAIN

REPLACING A ZIPPER

ADJUSTING FIT