Buttons

[sewmuchmore]

  OK I know we have had conversations before about never having the right size/amount/colour of button in your stash for your garment. I have just made a shirt for you now who and no, I don't have enough buttons.
So why do we keep a stash of odd buttons? In all the years I have been sewing I have never needed just the odd 1 or 2 buttons so why do I have so many? Why am I keeping them?

[Lachica]

When you find out, let me know. I also have a large number of oddsies.

[Renegade Sewist]

...because you can.  Maybe it's ingrained from childhood. If your Mom or Grandmother sewed perhaps they let you play with their button jar. Mine did and I still have it & plow through it now and then. Drawn to the same 2 or 3 fancy buttons since 1960. I get a smile whenever I get them out.

[Lachica]

That'll be it! Must look for my mum's button tin next time I visit Dad. Whenever I complained of boredom I was given the button tin to sort through& & stitch sets of buttons onto cards.

[supergran]

I've got a small stash of them and I don't even make garments. Why? 

[toileandtrouble]

Well, I've actually used some.  I have sets of shirt buttons from discarded shirts and they were useful.  Also, small numbers of fancy ones for blouses and the skirt I wore today has two buttons on the flaps of the false pockets.  My dress tonight has three gold edged pearl ones that I inherited via my MILs button box. A few gone on small people's clothing. (And they like to sort buttons too).  Button eyes on sock puppets and the centres of fabric flowers. 
Finally, where else would I put the spare buttons I get when I buy clothing?

[Renegade Sewist]

Supergran, I do make garments and avoid using them. Yet I'll pick up a pattern I like, usually a coat, and if I come across buttons that would be good I buy them.

I fancy making a couple of Pirate frock coats and have found suitable patterns. Have possible fabric for one and bought sets of buttons, about 30 buttons for each I think. Haven't done a thing but admire all those cards of pewter skull and crossbones buttons. Daft.

[Greybird]

I have a bag, two jars and a tin of buttons. The bag is one I bought on Ebay containing mostly vintage pearl buttons which I use to embellish cushions I make with vintage fabrics and occasionally for garments. The two jars are those I've collected over the years and the tin is my Mum's. I can remember pressing some of the buttons into Plasticine as a child and when I sort through it now I remember the dresses and blouses my Mum wore with those buttons on. Last year I made a jacket and used two buttons from the tin for it.

[Tamnymore]

Having a button tin is a sign of being a grown up lady (or gent). As a local charity shop does fantastic buttons with like ones sewn onto cards this means I have a very good collection of original and cheap buttons. When I was in the shop once I joked with the assistant that one day when I was gone my children would be bringing all.the remaining buttons back. Completely deadpan she replied 'and we'll find a way of working that into the service.'   

[Kenora]

I inherited my gran's button box years ago, and it makes me smile when I sift through it. I remember happy times when my cousins and me were allowed to play with the buttons and a pair of old-fashioned weighing scales - complete with huge weights. We used to play "shops", and sell each other odds and bits using buttons as currency.

[wrenkins]

One of my close friends is a dyed in the wool, beat round the kitchen Irish Catholic. She made her little brothers "take communion" when they were children and as part of the service she made them swallow buttons. 
Didn't do them a button of harm!!!
True story! 

[Tamnymore]

@wrenkins thank goodness they must hsve been teeny buttons. I'm trying to banish from my mind the thiught that the particular buttons would have, how should I put it.... become available again..... but nobody would want to see them again by then.

[wrenkins]

I'm not sure what size they were @Tamnymore. I know she made them eat cardboard too in the throes of her religious fervour. 
She's now a total atheist! As for her brothers...dunno! 
I suppose there's nothing puts you off religion like a priest giving you a hiding for not making him tea!   

[Tamnymore]

How does the old saying go @wrenkins ? What doesn't kill you makes you stronger! 

Oh and I've just remembered I tried to make my twin brother eat a bluebottle when we were kids. No religious fervour involved though just typical sibling malice. Don't know if it's made him kinder to bluebottles in his adult life.

[So Chic]

It's the memories they bring back when sorting through the button box.