Buttons!

With hubby in the hospital and a great big stack of deadline knitting at my elbow, I thought I’d take today to re-publish one of my most popular posts about something we all love: buttons!

So. You’ve invested the money, put in the time and you’ve created a beautifully crafted, hand made sweater with perfect buttonholes and button bands. What now? Buttons! I hear people complain about how hard it is to find good buttons, but my quick little search led to so many wonderful things, I could have looked at fabulous buttons all day. (I’d especially love a batch of the buttons above…button cookies! Check out the tutorial here.)

Dorset buttons are something I really love and I’m sorry that I default to a shopping trip every time I need buttons. They are quite easy to make, require only the most basic materials and are perfect for those times when the buttons need to blend with the sweater. Knitting Daily published a neat tute on making these Checkerboard Buttons.

Kate Davies has a very good tutorial where she’s used a contrasting wool button. Here’s another by Henry’s Buttons, based in Dorset where the button industry began in the 1600’s. These sweet little buttons have an interesting history too.

The variety of ceramic buttons available boggles the mind! ButtonMad, located in the Boston area, had me paging through their lovely, whimsical catalogue where I could easily have loaded up a shopping cart of pretty things, like these little sheep. A more rustic approach to ceramic buttons comes from potter Duane Collins at Elements Pottery on Etsy. Imagine a feature button like this crafted in dramatic raku.

My favorites are made of natural, classic materials like bone and horn. Fringe Supply Co. has a beautiful array of simple buttons.

As features buttons, I was really taken with these sea-stone and sea-glass buttons from IrisDesigns on Etsy. 

I guess we’re not looking at Yo’Mama’s Button Box anymore, are we?