Tag: buttons

Pirate Shirt

Simplicity 4923

Today, rather than sewing something I actually need, like a dress for work or a winter coat, I decided to make a pirate shirt. As you do. (If you’re me.)

The pattern is Simplicity 4923, view C. I made a size Medium.
The fabric is just a plain black polycotton, and the cuffs are trimmed with flat broderie anglais lace – all from my stash. The collar size and length are just right, but the sleeves are absolutely ridiculous – even by 18th century standards. I could easily shorten them by four or five inches and they’d still be enormous!

Next time I think I’d like to make one in a nice soft white linen. I’ve found the perfect linen buttons too – just like the ones on the smocks at MERL. In fact, I might employ a technique I saw on a number of the MERL smocks, and make some horizontal tucks in the sleeves to shorten them.

I also want to have a look at The Cut of Men’s Clothes by Norah Waugh, and see what I want to do about the front fastening. I don’t really want to add eyelets and ribbon, so I might go for thread loops and little buttons. I should have done that on the sleeves, but for the sake of convenience (and maybe a touch of laziness) I went for snap fasteners instead.

There’s another goth night in a couple of weeks, so I plan to wear this with Paul’s old leather trousers. If I have time, I might make a waistcoat to go over the top. I’ve still got a piece of black and silver brocade that should be just about big enough.

Dorset Buttons

Dorset Buttons

Slightly larger than actual size (they’re about an inch across), here are three Dorset Buttons that I made at the weekend. I was too tired to make the waistcoat that these will eventually be sewn onto, so I figured that making the buttons was at least a start.

I followed a tutorial in a 1935 sewing book that I picked up in Oxfam a few weeks ago, but because Everything Exists on the Internet (even if you’d rather it didn’t), I can offer you a link to some instructions from the British Button Society. Mine’s a rather measly “Blandford Cartwheel” with only eight spokes. There’s also a rather lovely picture tutorial at Craft Stylish.

Speaking of tutorials, it’s nice to see that people are actually using some of mine! Becca at Pink Toad Designs made some flower brooches. The buttons she’s used for the centres are gorgeous!

These three buttons are all the sewing I’ve had time for in the past few weeks. A combination of starting a new job in the mornings and helping out at Paul’s office in the afternoons has left me with the time and energy for nothing but working and sleeping.

Folkwear Croatian Shirt

Folkwear 117 - Croatian Shirt

This is Folkwear 117, the Croatian Shirt.

I bought the pattern intending to make it in the dress length, but I didn’t have anything like enough of this cotton lawn, so I made a rather short shirt instead. I started this project about eight months ago, and then it was put to one side while I was working on sewing for other people. At long last, I’m really pleased to have it finished.

The fabric is a lightweight cotton lawn and the buttons are vintage, from one of my many inherited button tins. The close-up of the buttons and tucks is the most accurate for colour, but that still doesn’t show how bright this shirt is!

Folkwear 117 - Croatian Shirt

The construction is a mixture of ancient and modern. All of the long seams and the hem have been serged, for speed and strength. The pin tucks were all stitched down by machine as well. The yoke, collar and cuffs are all finished by hand. All of the fasteners (there are poppers underneath the buttons) have been hand sewn too.

I think this is the approach I’m going to take when I put together my prototype dressing-up smock for the museum. Serged seams, especially under the arms, will make a smock far more resistant to tearing when it’s being taken on and off in a hurry by a class full of enthusiastic children. But the finishing will all be done by hand, as will the smocking and embroidery, so they’ll get an idea of what an authentic period garment would have been like.

Blackbird Button

Blackbird button

I bought this handsome little fellow in Harrogate, at Duttons for Buttons.

I haven’t quite thought of the perfect use for a single ceramic button in the shape of a blackbird, but he’s so pretty I’m sure I’ll come up with something.

Fruit Salad

Fruit Salad

I fell in love with this wool back in December. John Lewis were having a clearance sale, and I was tempted into buying a whole jumper’s worth.

The yarn is Debbie Bliss Soho, in colourway 16. I wouldn’t normally go for yellows and oranges, but the colours reminded me so much of those little Fruit Salad chews I used to get entangled in my braces as a child that I couldn’t resist!

At first I thought the wool was going to turn into a pullover with a deep v-neck. Then I spotted these buttons, hard and translucent like delicious boiled sweets, and knew that they’d be perfect for a chunky cardigan. I spent a good while trying to choose between the pink and the orange and, uncharacteristically for me, I left the pink ones behind.

Now I just need to find the time to break out the coloured pencils, and draw up a design for a Fruit Salad cardigan, with boiled sweet buttons. Irresistible!