Spoke too soon…

Harris Tweed cufflinks - heather pink & orange

Well, the purple cufflinks were going to be mine, all mine… and then I posted a picture of them to Facebook, where my friend Patrick made the persuasive argument that they’d go perfectly with his purple Blaqua shirt.

So now the purple ones will belong to Patrick, and these lovely orange and lilac heathered ones can go into the cuffs of my shirt with the pink, purple and orange flowers. Perfect!

If anybody’s looking covetously at this pair, I do have another piece of identical Harris Tweed, so I will be making some more! I’m going to try not to make too many duplicate sets, as I want these to be as individual as possible.

Harris Tweed cufflinks

Harris Tweed cufflinks - purple

I recently bought a packet of teeny-tiny offcuts of Harris Tweed, from a seller on Ebay.

Today I was feeling thoroughly overwhelmed by the amount of things I need to do and the amount of time I’m spending doing admin-type tasks instead of being creative, and I simply had to MAKE SOMETHING.

So, here’s a pair of Harris Tweed cufflinks in an absolutely glorious shade of purple.

There will be future Harris Tweed cufflinks available for sale, but this is the only pair in this colour, and they’re mine, all mine!

Cufflinks

Cufflinks

The main reason I bought that TM Lewin shirt was because it fastened with cufflinks. It’s quite rare to find women’s shirts with double cuffs (unless you want to splash out more than I can currently afford), so I was really pleased to have spotted it.

In the shop the cuffs are fastened with little plastic studs, so of course I then needed to make myself a pair of cufflinks. I was going to follow the Martha Stewart tutorial, but a quick rummage around in the Shed turned up some slightly more sturdy components.

These are two pairs of buttons, as per Martha Stewart’s directions, but instead of being joined with thread loops I used metal jump rings from my jewellery-making supplies. All four buttons have shanks rather than holes, so this seemed like a more appropriate solution than joining them with thread.

The top buttons are about an inch across, and covered in offcuts of silk from the waistcoat and bow tie. The bottom buttons are about a centimetre across, and are the same as the buttons on the waistcoat. I also managed to find larger versions of the same buttons for the trousers and the jacket. So there you go – custom cufflinks to match your outfit for the price of four buttons and a couple of little metal rings!

Heart Button Cufflinks

The trouble with buying men’s shirts is that the sleeves are always too long. I buy them because it’s quite difficult to find women’s shirts that fasten with cufflinks, unless you can afford to shop at somewhere like Thomas Pink.

Then it can be difficult to find pretty or interesting cufflinks, but fortunately it’s extremely easy to make your own!

This tutorial from Martha Stewart shows you how to make the cufflinks pictured above, from four mother-of-pearl heart shaped buttons.

All you need is four buttons, a needle, and some nice strong thread.

Easy peasy!