Button bonanza a quilter’s paradise

Last summer, I found button heaven in a trunk at Bend in the Road, an antiques mall on Verona Island. It wasn’t just any trunk, but one of those big, square, made-for-serious-travel steamer trunks from the 19th century. Full of buttons.

When I see a trunk full of buttons, I want to paw through them forever. You’re not the only one, said Kelli Motta of Bucksport, who with Michael and Denise Sheehan of Bucksport owns the mall.

Bend in the Road has thoughtfully provided little stools where those of us who are button-crazed may perch while sifting through the booty with colanders the store also provides. Asked how many buttons she thought might be in the trunk, Motta said, “A gazillion.” But, she added, the number is dwindling fast as button hunter-gatherers hear of the windfall.

The experience of pawing through the buttons is a lot like playing in the sand – you scoop up a pile from as far down at you can get, over and over, until something surfaces that catches your eye – a lulling, almost hypnotic task. The sound of the buttons sliding around against one another is reminiscent of water lapping at the shore. Heaven, indeed.

For a modest cost of several dollars, I could have dumped a generous scoop of buttons of all shapes, colors, and sizes into a paper bag, but I preferred to be selective and went for the 1940s-vintage white ones. Next time, maybe it will be metal buttons I go for; after that, maybe glass buttons.

Some make a beeline to the button trunk, Motta said, with the simple need to match a button lost from a well-loved item of clothing. That must be a little like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. But with so many buttons all in one place, surely the odds of finding a matching one here is better than anywhere else.

The biggest reason people hunker around the trunk, Motta said, is quilting. Quilters like to embellish their work with buttons to give it a homey, country look.

Sifting through the buttons is fascinating, not only because of the sound and the amazing array of color, texture and shape, but because buttons are artifacts of days gone by – little pieces of history from forgotten finery. It’s impossible not to imagine the kinds of garments the buttons held together – olive green military uniforms, little girls’ flower print sunsuits, rustling taffeta party dresses, Sears Roebuck wool coats in shades of pale pink or blue, swirly cotton skirts, white petticoats trimmed in crocheted lace and all-business starched shirts.

I never discard a worn-out garment without first snipping off the buttons and tossing them in one of the old cookie tins I keep for that purpose – one of the best housekeeping lessons my mother ever taught me.

Over the years, my tins of buttons have served me well. When my sons were little, they loved sorting them into piles of similar shapes and colors. Neighbors who needed to replace a lost button dropped by to raid my tins and ended up staying for a cup of tea while I sewed the button on. Elderly ladies, whose days of sewing were over, handed the boxes of buttons they had hoarded on to me, making me a well-buttoned woman.

Besides fastening clothes together with buttons, you can play “Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button” – a children’s guessing game most of us learned in kindergarten. You can use buttons in jewelry-, doll- and puppet-making. You can collect and display them in shadow boxes or pretty frames. Using a glue gun, you can ’tile’ the bottom of a wooden tray with buttons. Or make button garlands for festive occasions by stringing and tying them, one by one, with narrow ribbon or yarn.

Habermen Fabrics, a Canadian company, suggests sewing on buttons – those without a shank – this way: Cut thread 20 to 24 inches long. Use buttonhole twist for coats and jackets, hand-sewing thread for other projects. Thread the needle and knot the two ends together. Start stitching with the knot on the surface where the button will be. The knot will end up under the button. Stitch top to bottom to top, through the button and back to the bottom. Place a ‘lift,’ such as a round toothpick or straight pin between the button and the fabric. Make three or four thread passes through the fabric, the button and around the ‘lift,’ ending with the needle between the fabric and the button. Wrap the needle and thread ‘figure-eight style’ three or four times around the thread strands to create a shank. Remove the ‘lift.’

End by passing the needle and thread through the cross of the ‘figure eight’ and end with a pass over the final thread loop. The resulting thread shank will be firm and resistant to wear by friction. It will allow flexibility and not pull the fabric.

As for any spare buttons that come your way, start filling up a steamer trunk of your own. You won’t regret it.

Snippets

Marge Holyoke of Brewer put her knitting needles to good use recently when she knitted hats and mittens for two men who came to the First Congregational Church office seeking aid. She heard about the need Friday and completed the items by Sunday.

Last week’s fabric valentine instructions contained an error. The right sides of the fabric should be placed together, not the wrong sides.

The e-mail address for Stitches from the Heart was incorrectly given. The correct address is stitchfromheart@aol.com.

Ardeana Hamlin can be reached at the Bangor Daily News by calling 990-8153 or e-mailing ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.