Tuesday 9 March 2010

Buttons

Time & space at last to sit & think & write.

Buttons

Over the last few months I have tried to buy some basic buttons and been unsuccessful. When Mr PoppyM asked for some for his trousers I thought it would be a simple case of vi sting a wool-shop - and sure enough, they sold a variety of buttons but for exorbitant prices. I turned to supermarkets - all they sold were pre-packs of tiny buttons probably aimed at shirts. Oh to have a John Lewis on the door-step. It set me thinking about why I hadn't suitable buttons, I used to have a tin-full of them, all sorts of sizes & shapes. These were gleaned from clothing that had come to the end of their life & some came from charity shops, where occasionally big, mixed bags could be had for around a pound. My mother, her mother, my aunts and friends all had tins of buttons too. The tins were usually biscuit or cake tins with a pretty picture on the front. Inside were buttons from a variety of clothes along with zips & clasps snappers and safety pins, often there'd be part-skeins of embroidery silk & empty cotton-reels. They were fascinating to a small child, almost as much fun as a jewellery box. Looking back I can see that they held clues to family life - I guess my tins have become lost during my many moves. Back to the search for the trouser buttons- I found a great site on the Internet - The One Stop Button Shop. Here are buttons as I remembered them - 35 ordinary buttons for around £3.50. Of course they also sell pretty buttons. The moral - don't put -up with the paltry offerings that some shops offer!
I've had a quick look at the history of this everyday item. Purely decorative, functional, status symbols, objects of legislation, highly collectibles, humble and valuable.
The fabulous picture is by Rima Staines - thehermitage.estsy.com
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