Buttons and Bags

The last weekend in April I went to a small workshop with my mom on how to make dorset buttons, which are made from thread. This was a cottage industry in the nineteenth century and people made them for men's shirts and other clothing items. I'd like to use them on toys someday.

We learned to make dorset buttons with plastic hoops (the originals would have been made of bone or brass), and also without hoops, just thread! The tiny ones are only made of thread. You wind thread around a knitting needle several times and then pull the thread hoop off and start tying knots around it to make it solid--wild. And so simple! I'm amazed by the ingenuity of crafts.



I was on such a roll sewing old sewing projects that I made a go at the Sock Monkey fabric purse I've been meaning to make for a couple of years. This is the last sewing project for which I already have all the materials.

The pattern is Butterick 4821. The red monkey fabric is the main fabric (pink fabric on the purse the model is holding), and I have some fabric that is printed with bananas on a lime green background for the contrast fabric (stripes) and lining.