Buttons & Quilting…Favorite Topics, It Seems

   I’ve had many quilters/fabric artists and simply button collectors respond to my previous post, What Do Quilters Use for Storing Buttons?, sparked by Josh Johnson’s post, Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button? at Junk Creation.

They have shared how they store buttons, how they collect buttons, who started them collecting, and nostalgic memories of buttons and button collecting.  The topic of buttons has evoked such a great response, that I’ll periodically post about buttons…something I enjoy collecting and researching.

I used to think of buttons as simply a utilitarian object to hold clothing together.  Eventually I realized they could have a decorative effect on clothing.  When I began doing dressmaking and alterations for Miss Morrison many years ago, she introduced me to the hobby of button collecting.

She had pictures hanging on her wall that caught my attention when I stopped by to fit her.  (Ida was an invalid so couldn’t travel to my home for fittings as my other customers did.)  We chatted about the buttons, she mentioned the history of some, then loaned me books about button collecting.  Ida had jars of buttons and even gave some to my then 5-year old daughter to play with.  I began to realize this was a facsinating topic.

Since my daughter Beth, now a mom and art quilt designer and exhibitor,with her Meandering Threads blog, began using buttons on some of her work, I’ve realized another dimension of buttons.  Decorating art quilts with these as embellishments is fun and gives one an excuse for accumulating buttons.

How are you using buttons in your quilting and art work?  How do you store them?  Do you use them interchangeable with beads?  I love to hear how you’re collecting and using buttons.