Buttoning Up - Part Two

Part II of an ongoing series of making your own buttons in a period fashion...


Sorry it took so long. On my first try at this, the pictures didn't turn out so well. Getting my little camera to focus on thread is a no-go. SO... for this post I used a larger bead (3/4 inch) and some cheap yarn I had lying around to improve the picture quality.

As previously noted here and elsewhere, the easiest way to 'button up' is to go to your friendly neighborhood cloth retailer and peruse the button aisle. A multitude of perfectly-acceptable metal and wood buttons are available for the purchasing.

The problem lies in that this embarrassment of riches open to the modern costumer is not necessarily reflective of what the period tailor had to work with. Portraits indicate that even among the hoity and the toity metal buttons weren't the most common application. Only the most notorious clothes horses like Leicester seemed to go for the jems and fine metals. Metal buttons are found by metal detectors in Europe all the time, so they weren't rare, but many of them have been cast to resemble the threadworked variety, which I find noteworthy. Also, threadwork or cloth buttons make up the bulk of the buttons I see in the paintings and on the extent period garments examined by Janet Arnold and others in the available texts.

There are three basic styles of threaded bead-buttons I can find readily-available documentation for and I'll focus on those. There are hundreds of possible permutations of this style of button and they're in use through the victorian era. Today I will work a 'corded' design, a 'faceted' design, and a 'basketweave' design here and leave the rest to your imaginations...

Historical Notes:
In Janet Arnold's "Patterns of Fashion 1560-1620" are several images of buttons worked in thread (usually silk) over a wooden core. Based solely on her documentation it appears that the basketweave seems to be the most popular into the early 1600's, often done at an angle to give the weave a more diamond look rather than squares. Following that, I'd say the faceted design is next, and I've only found a couple of examples of the 'corded' look.

The core-shape of course dictates the final shape of the button, and they seem to have been primarily spherical with a couple of flat ones here and there. A quick survey of period paintings will confirm this.

Getting Started...
Each button we'll be talking about begins the same way. Select a bead of appropriate size and thread that will match or contrast with your garment as suits the effect you're trying to achieve. On period garments, the sizes seem to run the gamut from 1" on down.


Take your bead and run your thread through the center hole several times, laying nice flat cords longitudinally around the circumference of your sphere as shown below...


Each design is determined by how you then weave the chord through this base layer. The more wraps, the smoother the final product will be and the longer the design will take to complete. If you wrap it enough and weave carefully it is possible to have your final results be - essentially - as fine as the cloth your will be sewing them to. I never do this, as I believe that the texture of the button adds to the final garment. If I wanted cloth buttons I'd use cloth to cover the bead and save myself some time and handcramps.

The Corded Design
I'm not sure if there's a better term out there for this style, "ridged" perhaps? I call it the 'corded' design because the final button looks like it has corded ridges radiating longitudinally around it.

Start by determining how many ridges you want on your button and lay that many longitudinal cords. Too many and the button will look solid. Too few and it will look unfinished. I find 6-7 to be optimal, but do however many suits you.

Lay each stitch underneath the longitudinal cords...


And comeback around and loop back so you can pass under the same cord, laying the stitch 'south' of the previous one to keep them laying flat without gaps...


Repeat over and over again until the bead is covered and finish...






The 'Faceted' Design...
I call this the faceted design because the finished buttons (when you're using finer threads than the yarn I'm using here anyway) look like they're faceted due to the cords laid underneath drawing the overlaid threads taut to break up the spherical symmetry of the button.

Begin just as noted above. The more cords you lay, the smoother and less faceted the finished product, so keep in mind just how smooth an appearance you want to achieve ere you begin...

Instead of going under each longitudinal cord, go over it and pass your needle back under as shown...

Over...


And pull it tight...
Draw tight so that the loop is hidden from view as you move on to the next cord, hiding the 'cording' I mentioned in the previous button under the layers of thread.


Finish as shown below.

The Basketweave Design...
This is the button that takes the longest of all of them in my experience, simply because you're laying more stitches. Janet Arnold documents these with any number of strands from one to six in each course of the weave so you can do as you see fit.

When you start you want to almost completely cover the button with the longitudinal threads (see left).

I also find that this design goes faster and more smoothly if I'm working with a doubled thread, but you need to be careful not to twist the strands as you're weaving them. Simply hold them flat in place with your thumbnail as you pull each stitch tight and that will help immensely in the quality of the final product.

NOTE: you will want to make an odd-number of longitudinal cords for your weaving or you won't get an even weave when you get to the next part. Just trust me on this one...

The rest is simple, if tedious. Weave the doubled-thread through the longitudinal threads, forming a basketweave pattern as you go. Each weave will be two threads wide if you're working with doubled thread as I am here, and I find you can go as high as six before you start to lose the pattern altogether.

Weave...Weave...

And finish as noted below.

Repeat as often as you desire or for as long as your hands hold out. Twenty-thirty is average, especially for English attire, which is notoriously button-happy.

Take medicinal herb or alchemic concoction of choice to deal with the hand cramps this inevitably produces.

To Finish the Buttons (all)...
Once each button is completely covered with your thread, you're going to find that the hole at the center of the bead is still visible unless you've pulled your stitches tight enough to force the hole closed. As far as I can tell from looking at Janet Arnold, this was usually attended to by tying a big knot and pulling it down tight to fill or cover the hole...

Start by passing the needle back through the hold from bottom to top. There are several fancy knots you can use and at this point I'll refer you to every embroidery and knot book in the world so you can boggle at the sheer number of options available to you.

For the simplest solution, simply wrap your thread around the needle three or four times as shown...


Then pull tight, keeping the knot where you want it by using your thumbnail to hold it in place as you tighten...


Pass the needle back through the hole and snug down so that your knot is either in the hole, flush with the surface, or (if big enough) sitting atop the surface like you see in some buttons pictured in Janet Arnold.


And another finished example...


For the basketweave design, I like the look better if you just pull the weave snug enough to cover the hole, but the knot looks fine too.

Sometimes people use another bead to finish the button. Passing the thread through the bead and pulling it tight instead of making a knot. Aside from the fact that I've not seen any period examples of this yet, I simply prefer the knotted finish anyway. I have tried the beaded solution and played around with it quite a bit out of curiosity and simply don't find any of my results compelling. I've also toyed with the idea of schwanking these up a bit using metal jewelry findings and such, but nothing yet has really looked right to me. If you use a bead of a contrasting color, however, it gives you a really neat effect so I leave it to your own aesthetics...


Worked in finer threads, the final is more impressive than the yarn-covered ones in the tutorial. It's even enough to impress my notoriously finicky marionette...