Make do and Mend - Navy blazer update

This weekend I have been working on a 'Make do and Mend' project on my navy blazer. It was looking a little sorry for itself with buttons hanging off and a couple missing. I wanted to give it a facelift and one of the quickest and easiest ways to do this with any garment is to update the buttons.

I wanted to keep the military theme of the blazer so after a quick search on eBay I found these lovely gold buttons with a raised coat of arms design in exactly the right size for the front and for the sleeves.

I gathered my sewing kit together and made a start!

First of all I used a stitch ripper to carefully and neatly remove the old buttons from the jacket. Always make sure you are cutting just through the threads holding the button on, and never through the actual fabric! This will make a quick update into an much more laborious and difficult task if you have to stop and darn a hole.

To mark the exact location of each button after I had removed it I added a tailors tack in white thread so I could see exactly where the new button should be positioned. You can generally see where they have been from the previous sewing holes, but I wanted to make extra sure!

Once all 12 button positions had been marked, I started to sew them on using the matching thread. These buttons had shanks on the back, which make them a little more fiddly than flat buttons, but they are well worth it to create a great look. If your button has a design, like the coat of arms, make sure that you are very careful to get it the right way up and try and line them all up in the same direction. If they all display in different directions it will look cheap and rushed, so make sure that you take your time.

My finished jacket looks so much smarter and the decorative gold buttons are the perfect finishing touch, even making it look a little more expensive! They were slightly heavier than the old buttons so give a lovely weight to the garment. I have an event coming up in a few weeks time that I can't wait to wear this for, and give my updated and refreshed jacket a spin!