Blame It On Bathsheba's Buttons!

Once I’d seen Carey Mulligan as Bathsheba Everdene, in a dress fastened with Dorset buttons, I wanted to learn to make them! When we visited the Shaftesbury Museum, I looked at the display there, then I went onto Henry’s Buttons website. I bought 20 small brass rings for £1 in the sewing shop in Wimbledon [sadly closing down, after 69 years]when I was up in London for my WWDP committee. And then last weekend, I set about teaching myself to make them. There’s plenty of information online 

Here are my first attempts – the smaller ones I was pleased with – the larger ones I shall take to bits. [The white thread twisted and tangled too much, the brown metallic yarn did not give me the effect I wanted] The hanging threads are left on so you have something to use to attached the finish button to the garment. But in answer to my friend Pat’s question “What will you put in your Orla Keilly jar”"?” the answer is “Ongoing button crafts” – especially now I have two. Bob returned from London on Tuesday mighty with a yellow OK jar from Steph [thank you daughter!]

I did take them down to the Craft & Coffee Morning in the church hall on Monday [a monthly event run by my friend Ali] in the hopes that a local expert would come along and advise! One lady told me she was going to a talk on Dorset buttons, and another said she had a book at home – and both promised to come to the next one and tell me more. The buttons are on sale in the Wimborne Museum Shop – made into brooches with a pin on the back. A good gift idea. The other sort of Dorset button is the Singleton - named after the family who made them. [bottom left in the top picture] They too start on the foundation of a brass ring- but it is first covered with fabric and then embroidered and embellished. I shall master producing more evenly stitched cartwheel buttons before I move on to them, I think!