The Button Box Project

I was excited about this project that we started back in September at “In the stitch zone”. Alex had come up with the idea of experimenting with ways of attaching buttons and extending our stitch knowledge.

I’ve loved buttons as far back as I can remember, and spent many happy hours rifling through my nanna’s button box on a Saturday afternoon, also my mum’s tin of buttons which I still have. An old neighbour from when my mum was a child worked in a button factory, and many came from “Aunty Jan”. Lots of mother of pearl buttons in various sizes, and belt buckles, one of which was used on a favourite dress that I made as a teenager. I used to sort them in to colours, sizes and patterns, as well as trying to find enough of the right size for cardigans that my mum knitted, and sewing projects of nanna’s and later my own. Mum also used to take the buttons off anything that was only fit for rags or dusters; so do I. It’s very rarely that I have ever needed to buy a button or buttons for a specific project.

But Alex suggested we used the boring “odd” buttons, as it was more about the attachment than the buttons themselves. Still difficult to decide, but I didn’t give myself much time to deliberate and picked a jar of dull, brown toned buttons…….

…….and amongst them found a wooden one, and then a few more, which I thought would be a good starting point. There were a few unusual shapes. Alex suggested a plain or small patterned fabric.

I settled on this yellow small print, which I thought wouldn’t distract too much from the buttons and stitching, and started with a simple running stitch in brown perlé around the button…….

……..which I whipped and then got carried away with the stitching using yellows, golds and browns.

I found more buttons at home, some of which are made from coconut shells. I linked these back to the long straight stitches with feather stitch.

Also more threads in oranges and yellows, my go-to autumn colours.

I did more feather stitches from the buttons on the right, back up to the chain stitched button at the top. This is the way up that I envisaged it.

I got carried away with the feather stitch, layering shades of orange and browns. At class someone (Carol?) had asked about orientation and, after much turning and assessing, the general consensus was that it worked better this way. It’s more or less gathered here, but only resting on an old pine clock base.

I used several layers of wadding over the glass dome that went over the clock face, and laced it across the back.

The pine had three holes where pegs had attached the glass over the face, and I have used these to thread fishing line through to attach the stitched piece to the wood frame. It was the perfect size for the stitching. I only found it when looking for something else, and it was good to use up something we already had, even though it barely made a dent in the button collection!

So, why were we keeping a clock that didn’t work? Just in case! Its time would come…..

At last, my hussif is finished!

I cut off some of the excess navy needlecord on the left hand side, and folded the pocket section on to the lining (it needed a bit of fiddling to mitre the corner). The rest was ironed in half, then folded over to make the binding. It was quite bulky and, after trying to pleat / fold the excess on the pocket, I decided the easiest way would be to do a long machine stitch and gather it up like a sleeve head. This would make it even on both sides, and leave the pocket big enough for my glasses or phone.

Before it could be stitched down, I made some elasticated loops to go round the navy toggles found in my button box. I used this old round cord, threaded through bias binding stitched in half .

I used a mattress needle to thread it through, in the end cutting the bias into two and half inch lengths before threading the elastic.

I pinned them in place and machine stitched them all down……

……..before folding over the binding and stitching it in place. Then another piece of binding was put across the top, the right hand side of the pocket was turned in and hand stitched in place.

I then put things inside……

……. so that I could see where the toggles needed to be stiched. I’ve decided not to wash it for the moment in case the navy cord does run. (Alison suggested putting white or pale work in a plastic bag just to make sure it doesn’t pick up any colour.)

When they’ve seen it, several folk have said it’s bigger than they’d realised from my blog posts. When it’s opened out, it measures 34cm high (13 1/2 inches) by 61cm (24 inches) across the three “pages” and closed 23cm (9 inches). Yes, it is fairly hefty, but I should be able to take out with me all that I might need at various groups and classes I go to. Things will no doubt get tweaked and added to, but it’s finally finished and ready for use.