50 Heirloom Buttons to Make: A gallery of decorative fabric, needle-lace, crochet, and ribbon and braid closures you can create by Nancy Nehring is a book that’s incredibly dense with information about how to make reproductions of antique buttons. Using several techniques and modern materials that are fairly easy to find, you learn how to weave, crochet, sew and knot special buttons.
Period costume makers specializing in the 1700s to 1800s and dressmakers today can learn a lot from this book, it’s also an excellent resource for lace makers and crocheters who want to try something new.
There is a great deal of information in this book. You’ll use cords, threads and fabric over button forms, some commercial, some adapted to the project like nylon washers. It’s meticulously researched and fairly exhaustive in the things it covers.
Needleworkers will find ideas in here for ways to make buttons and inspiration as well. Many of these techniques could be applied to jewelry.
Where original button molds are now fairly inaccessible, the author offers suggestions to use instead.
Styles covered include thread weaving, lace making techniques, embellishing high quality cotton tulle, embroidery, coiled fabric strips, woven ribbons, simple fabric buttons and knots. My favorite techniques are the thread weaving and the whole chapter on making frog closures that goes well beyond the simple and common cloverleaf frog.
These are not quick projects while your first learning the techniques because of the precision necessary to make matched sets of buttons, but it is very portable. The techniques themselves are simple, it’s the scale and trying to get everything exact that make them challenging. I recommend practicing with thicker threads and bigger washers or even yarn on cheap bangle bracelets while you’re first learning the technique.
The paper version is out of print, but it’s been re-released in Kindle format fairly inexpensively. This review is from the Kindle edition.
The image is an Amazon.com link.
