button contest
June 20, 2007
no button stories?!? come on button-loving crafty folks. i was expecting to wake up this morning to button stories galore…
but no. so maybe you need some enticement? while in alaska i inherited some really interesting old yarn from a lovely old woman that i have not blogged about yet. now, i’m not promising that this yarn is super pretty or that it’s glorious old stuff, but merely that it is old and interesting and still has labels.
so here’s the contest. submit your buttons stories (with a pic and/or a description!). i’ll probably post some of them as blog entries over the next week if promises of vintage yarn entices anyone… everything closes next wednesday (27th) and thursday i’ll draw two names out of the hat to send out both 2 batches of goodies including vintage yarn and a couple of buttons from the stash. if your name is drawn, you can request what sort of buttons you may wish to have and choose between the two colors of yarn. and i may throw in a vintage booklet or pattern too, since we’re moving and i’m cleaning. so it will be an overall old vintagey package.
oh, and i’m postponing my button story a bit. i’ll blog it soon, i promise. it’s really not overly exciting or fantastical, it’s just special to me and can be explained in two sentences. mine happens to have to do with my past, but you could tell the story of the thrift store where you hit the motherload, the button you found on the street, or the button you like because it is the epitome of all that you like (color, sheen) or one you love cause it’s old, or the ones you found on an old wool coat. i know that there are button stories out there and i will draw them out. oh yes. this blog will be devoted to buttons, and only buttons over the next week.
Mmm.. one of my two favourite buttons right now was added within the last month. Lately, I’ve been on a jewelry kick, and wanted to get back into some silversmithing, so I was looking for a stone to bezel-set into a ring for myself. Off to Mountain Gems in Burnaby, spent over an hour poking through their stuff.. and then walked away with 6 GLASS stones (y’know, the type that people put in flower vases) and a little tiny piece of green tile. Total purchase: less than $1. Phooey. Then I remembered some of the cool buttons glued-on-base-metal-rings that I’d seen on Etsy, so I headed downtown to the gloriousness that is Button Button.. and spent a much happier 30 minutes poking through everything there.
My find? A plastic 7/8″ diameter button, in dark green.. the outer ring is just a fairly plain ridged thing, like a pie crust.. but the INSIDE circle is glorious! Snakeskin-y, with different shades of the green fading in and out, and a tiny splash of coral! And, once I saw off the outer ring and the button shank, it is the perfect size for a moderately-attention-grabbing ring. Woohoo!
(now I just have to get out my silver gear again, and see if I can still solder…)
sorry, i got nothing!
i’ve never been that much into buttons. my mum sews too (i wish i’d learnt from her) and she has a big old biscuit tin full of them. maybe i’ll have to go through her stash and take some pics of them when i’m back in australia in august.
I have a lovely button story, but need to finish a job before I can indulge… Does that count? ;-)
Button stories. Well, I’ve got thousands of the little darlings (buttons. not stories). I have my grandmother’s button box and my mother-in-law’s button box. And my button box, of course. When I go to antique stores I look for buttons – can usually can find SOMEthing I can afford there if I stick to buttons. When they were children my daughters adored sorting them, stacking them, and using them for play money. The girls have inherited my passion for buttons and understand their true worth, I believe, as evidenced by their tendency to bring me button treasures when they visit. I haven’t done a will yet but realize today that the botton boxes are glorious bits of my legacy.
When I was in the art school at University of Michigan, I dated a fellow classmate who always wore interesting and funky clothes. He had this incredible vest that he had gotten from a vintage and consignment store in Royal Oak, MIchigan. The entire front of the demin vest was covered in vintage buttons and each button was unique. I can’t even imagine how long it took someone to make this. The vest easily weighed 5 pounds. It felt like armor. I’ve been looking around for a photo but I can’t find one. Unfortunately the fabric that all the buttons were sewn onto was disintegrating as it was an old vest to begin with. So many of the buttons were falling off. The boyfriend gave me the vest to see if there was anyway I could fix it. I was considering re-sewing all of the buttons to a backer piece of fabric (it was a serious relationship in my mind), but then we broke up. (Not due to the vest!) Somehow I ended up getting the vest in the breakup so I ended up taking off all of the buttons, thus the start of my vintage button collection. I can send you a photo of that.
Thanks for the great button photos! Sounds like you had a great trip to Alaska.
I’ve posted my favourite buttons on flickr especially for you:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosehip71/579898911/
They’re all big – not sure what that says about me – and are art deco. I inherited them from my mom. I wasn’t sure if I had any favourites, so I went through my stash and picked out the ones that I’d only give to someone I really liked a lot.
Actually my real favourite buttons would be antique mother of pearl – when I was very little I remember seeing a Pearly King and Queen raising money for charity. I fell in love with them instantly. (That my have been the year that I persuaded my Dad to purchase a Ronko Stud Master to put rhinestones all over her clothes: she never used it to my great disappointment – sorry I’ve gone off topic…!)
What’s a Pearly King?
BTW my Dad isn’t female – I missed out the words “for my mom” – glad we cleared that up!
My favorite buttons are attached to the front of a little white card that says Happy Mother’s Day. My baby went off to college this year, and it was hard to let go, but I made it. He was back in time for Mother’s Day, and now he is all grown up and shop for his own cards by himself. He took the time to find a card that shows he understands what I love (stitching!) and wrote me a lovely little note. So I am always going to keep this little card, with it’s buttons turned into flowers as a reminder of this transitional year when I became fully a mom to young adults, and no longer a mom to children.
i don’t have one particular button that is a favorite, but i do find my eyes drawn to them quite a bit. in particular, i adore the tiny, impossibly thin mother of pearl variety. they look like seashells still, and are so delicate and flawed in the most charming, natural way.
when my (now ex) stepsister turned sixteen, a friend gave her a beautiful, cascading handmade necklace made entirely of thread and those delicate wondrous buttons. it made the most magical tinkling noise and caught the light, and seeing my little sister in it was the first time i really let myself admit just how much she had grown up. after her father and my mother divorced, we’ve sadly lost touch, but i think of her whenever i see those buttons.
[...] you read the button contest entries lately? i get a few more each day and they are all so fun. thanks to everyone who has submitted so far! i’ve had a great time reading them all to my [...]
Years ago in Budapest, a friend and I happened upon a little button shop on a misty street that was transitioning from old to new. The shop, and its buttons, were of another era. We went wild, surely it was the best day the button man had had in many a moon. These buttons caught our eyes, were they amber?! Alas not, but interesting nonetheless, plastic? Bakelite? We had no idea, but we each bought a bagful.
Sure enough, the next time I went down the street– half looking for the shop–it had turned into a trendy upscale tourist spot. The button man was gone.
I had forgotten about these buttons, but saw them in a sewing basket that I had put together for my daughter. It was a large woven basket that I had put a collection of old buttons into including these unique Hungarian buttons. For what is a sewing basket but a collection of memories along with the practical everyday sewing items? Surely it must contain a bit of mystery for future generations to ponder over.
To see some of the buttons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/piroska/603421436/
Aw, twist my arm– I’ve got a button story.
My mom rarely sewed anything from scratch after I was four, but she had a gift for bringing out the best in ready-to-wear items. Her crowning achievement, in my personal estimation, occurred when I was seven and preparing for my first communion.
For those who have not lived through the ordeal of a Catholic first communion, it is one part sacrament and one part little girl prom. My contemporaries frequently lined up for Jesus in tiny white dresses that cost one hundred dollars or more, complete with fine fabrics, dressmaker details, even hand-beading or embroidery. My family happened to be of the demographic that balked at the thought of a one hundred dollar dress that would be worn once. As I was dragged from catholic goods store to mall to children’s boutique, I kept pointing to the princess dresses and my mom kept selecting the more modest offerings. Ultimately, a dress was selected on my behalf which manifested little glamour besides some sheer fabric, the requisite amount of ruffles, and an uninspired machine-embroidered border. I was disappointed.
In the month that followed the purchase, my mom went to work on the dress and its accompanying veil. Like Cinderella’s mice, she carefully added details to it– strings of craft pearls, additional stitching here and there. And to that uninspired machine-embroidery on the skirt, she sewed cards and cards of pearl buttons. I thought all of her fiddling wouldn’t make a bit of difference, but the final result shocked me. The dress looked, to my seven-year-old eyes, prettier than any of the others we’d seen in stores, especially for the pearl details on the skirt, for which no other little girl in my communion cadre had a parallel.
This photo doesn’t really show my mom’s button handiwork as much as the sheer excesses of fabric and ruffles– the blessed event did take place in the eighties, after all. If you look really closely at the photo, you can see the uppermost row of pearl buttons adorning the lace above my sash. Sadly, the buttons are lost with the dress they adorned– I hope they’ve gone to some other would-be princess. My younger sister had a finer ready-made dress purchased for her when she turned seven, and I believe my grandmother had something to do with my younger cousins getting some really ostentatious threads. I still believe I got the coolest dress of the lot of us.
[...] of our button stories have to do with buttons on garments or that belong to a paricular garment. there are several new [...]
I’m only just starting into knitting, but I’ve had my eye on some ceramic and lampwork buttons for awhile.
A few months ago, on the Discovery Channel show How Its Made, they had a segment on buttons, showing some of the different types and methods of manufacture. Can you picture how cool it was to see them make a layered color button, and then it roundedly ground away some of it to the middle, with the edges being the upper layers, so you see all the gradations! Then they showed other types, too. It was spell-binding!
I used to enjoy playing with the buttons in my mother’s button jar.
Somewhere around here, I have a vintage card of tiny buttons for Barbie clothes; it’s branded and everything, in crinkly plastic, on an aged card and stuff. Those are probably my “best” buttons at the moment, since I don’t have a collection. I’ve been wanting to start getting some to use as clasps for bracelets, and of course for knit and crochet items. I don’t know where to start, though . . . .
My button story, is rather meaningful to me this week, as my favorite aunt is fading away towards death. On my wedding day almost 11 years ago, between the wedding ceremony and the reception, as I was greeting the people who had been invited to the ceremony, one of the tiny pearl(ish?) buttons at the inside wrist popped off, and I didn’t know what to do! This button held the sleeve close around my lower arm, and without it, it sort of flopped around and didn’t keep the pretty point where it belonged on the back of my hand. My favorite aunt came to the rescue, with a sewing kit whipped out of her purse, and I stood there as she held my hand/wrist, hand-sewing that button back on. I haven’t seen or talked to her near as much as I now wish I had; hopefully she’ll go peacefully and with little discomfort. I do not relish the thought of her passing, but hope for peace and rest for her, from her ills. I will be remembering this happy memory of her, as I try to get through the funeral and burial.
Thanks for the prompt that led me to type this out.
[...] my current fixation and revelations, there’s another new button contest entry to read. and the question for today is, where do you find your buttons? i’ve inherited [...]
i’ve posted my favorite drawers of buttons to flickr, it’s so hard to choose just one favorite button. i think i’ve decided that the snowflake one is my favorite. i wish these buttons had more of a story, aside from the fact that they belonged to my great grandmother. when nana died i was in high school and i inherited some very random things from her. my cousins are all older and took the valuable things and furniture and stuff that now i kind of wish i had, but the things that i took from her house were all things i remembered from spending childhood afternoons there.
her buttons are organized by color and shape, and the two boxes of drawers sat on the top shelf in the room where she kept the toys i played with on my visits. she was a compulsive labeler, each item in her sewing box (which i also have) is labeled with the date she bought it and where it was from. but unfortunately the buttons aren’t labeled. many of the buttons that i have from her appear to have been cut off of garments. she grew up during the depression so she didn’t want to waste anything. lucky for me, because i have some amazing buttons. but i have trouble bringing myself to use them because they’re so special to me.
[...] is something unseen about buttons that is precious. that precious thing is communities. many of the button stories included the community that came together over these buttons in some way or another – whether it is [...]
[...] for the move! today i will mail off the extra projects for the book and the prizes from the button contest finally – into which i, of couse, forgot to put the notes before i taped them shut. where is my [...]