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…..

Nuno felting

Last Saturday at Seata we had an interesting and informative talk on felt and felting by Karen Lane in the morning. In the afternoon we had a demonstration on Nuno felting and then we did our own pieces. I had done a little Nuno felting previously, so decided to do a vessel rather than a flat piece. I cut a resist from bubblewrap, which was laid on top of a towel and a larger piece of bubblewrap. I’d picked warm / hot colours to reflect the heatwave that we were having, and started laying out the fibres. I laid vertically……

……. then horizontally, using a selection of the yellows, oranges and rust merino fleece that I’d taken.

Once I’d finished laying out the fleece, it was covered in net, and the wetting and soaping started. I’ve always used hot water, but Karen told us that it was better to work more slowly with Nuno, to start with cold water and to work very gently, which was perfect on such a hot day.

Once both sides reached the pre-felt stage, it was time to start adding the fabric. The colours are very autumnal, so I cut out leaf shapes. The bottom leaves on the left are a fine cotton that I dyed in the microwave with pomegranate and orange; the ones above are fine silk from the same dye bath. The rust and yellow are random synthetics from an inspiration pack. More gentle rubbing was next, before rolling and bashing until it was fully felted (fulled). The resist was left inside to help stop it felting to itself.

Then it was cut across the top and rubbed around the edge.

It had felted some of the cotton and silk leaves but not others, nor some of the scraps of wool which I’d spun years ago, the little bit handing on the right hand side. It was strange how some bits had “taken” and others exactly the same hadn’t. It was still wet at this stage and was a bit floppy, so I wasn’t sure if it would stand up.

The bottom is quite sturdy and once it was dry, it stood up pretty well…..

…… in spite of it being very fine in places. I’d also added some snippets of dark red velvet which had felted really well, giving a very textured effect, and some textured yarns which were a bit hit and miss.

It was certainly a learning curve, and a thoroughly enjoyable one. Thank you, Karen.

I’m not sure if I’m going to stitch into it or not, but certainly not yet. I’m really pleased with some of the textures, and can use things that I’d thought wouldn’t work: more to experiment with.