I love buttons, I really do. I buy them like children buy sweets - but I don’t eat them so that’s a flawed analogy really.
Look at some of my stash:
A lot of them are quite old. The Jason strips of buttons in the picture above are probably 60’s so not so old but I found them in a drawer in an old-fashioned hardware shop for 30p a strip. I got loads of them! Quite a few are from a woman who seems to be at every flea-market, jumble sale and car boot sale in the North. She doesn’t sell them cheaply but they are all old and lovely.
Some of them are colour coded in jars but by no means all of them. I need bigger jars.
The ones in the bottom photo are Deco. Mum bought them for me last Christmas and they are still waiting for the right project. They are just too beautiful to use.
It’s in danger of becoming a collection really, or a horde.
Have any of you got an accidental collection?
*edit* I think Angelapea in the comments has found the root of my magpie button hoarding. I forgot that my gran has a button box - and not just any button box - it’s a big Quality Street tin chock full of buttons all the way through from the 50’s. I used to play with them when I was little and I think she’s kept every ‘spare’ button that comes with clothes and ripped off all the buttons from garments that are going for dusters.
I do that. You know, I think a generation has been skipped and I’m turning into my gran. She sews and was a very good knitter until we got old (or rather teenagery) enough to reject her beautiful hand-made offerings. She’s the only one in her house who’s handy with a drill. We have a similar haircut (but she styles it a little more like the Queen) We don’t dress the same though.
I’m going to have to check out gran’s button box on Sunday, and start watcing her more closely.
Beccy
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I have an "accidental" button collection, too. I have mine in a huge glass storage jar, the kind that used to be used for pickling. Lots of the buttons are from my Grandma's button jar! I remember sorting through her jar as a child, by color, size, shape, playing for hours with those buttons. My favorites are the teeny tiny doll clothes buttons, and the flower shaped buttons from the 40's. I agree, some buttons are just too beautiful to sew onto anything as ordinary as a garment!
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of jars of buttons, but none as lovely as yours. I really like those cream and orange ones!
ReplyDeletehttp://intothecrockpot.blogspot.com/2012/02/i-have-some-trouble-with-clutter-i.html
ReplyDeleteI collect lots of things and I just wrote about being like my Grandma recently too. I love your blog, it is wonderful.
These are beautiful buttons! I too, was blessed just recently by the button fairy. Two very large tins of buttons showed up, unannounced, in my sewing room. It took me days to figure out who left them for me. I was flabbergasted when I found out it was my son. What a guy!
ReplyDeleteI love my buttons, too, and firmly believe in finding a way to use them in order to show them off! For those of you with celluloid buttons, do not store them in jars! They will deteriorate.
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