A Different Kind of Button

I should subtitle this "Using What You Have Accumulated" because I did get to use something that I have accumulated over the years with no specific intention planned.  This stems from going on a tangent whilst perusing Pinterest for....... I can't remember what lead me down the rabbit hole, but this is where I landed.  On Yorkshire buttons.  

That's not the only type of woven button that has piqued my interest, but so far the only one that I have actually tried. This is a finished Yorkshire button made with rainbow variegated crochet cotton.  The crochet cotton is what I have accumlated.  We went to a church bazaar several years back and I bought a whole bag of barely used and some new balls of Knit-Cro-Sheen cotton thread in a plethora of colors for $3 which was less that one single ball would have cost at the time.  (I see that the price of these has almost doubled since then.) 

They are made using a weaving technique that is pretty simple.  

You need to start with a circle cut from a heavy piece of paper and mark it evenly in 12 spaces (I've since seen that you can do even more spaces but this was what I started with).  I started by tracing my 1 3/4" punched circle onto a scrap piece of paper and used an angle and circle maker to mark off the segments, put tick marks onto the circle, numbered them, and then cut little divits into each tick mark.

You also need to put a hole in the center and that is where the thread comes up through.  There is a certain way that this has to be wrapped in order for the paper circle to be removed.  Here is a link to better and more precise instructions - click here.

You can see that the thread doesn't go across the back, just from tick to tick.  And I've loosely coiled my 8" tail and secured it to the back with some washi tape for easy removal.

It was recommended to use about 8 feet (2.5 meters) of thread to begin with.  I used that measurement with the first one that I tried and it was not long enough - you have to weave to the very edge of the circle.  You can add additional length of thread, however, if it is variegated you have to be careful to add the thread in the same gradation if you want to continue the pattern in that way.  I will say right now that the most clumsy and trying part of this is the length of thread, whether it was 8 ft. or 12 ft.  it tends to twist as you are weaving and keeping it unknotted is a challenge. You find little tricks to unwind the thread the more you do them.  

This was as close to the edge as I could get without popping the loops off unintentionally.

With the paper removed this is the back. (You can use either side of the weaving.  You would just pull that tail through to the other side if you wanted this to be the finished button.)

And the front.  At this point, you use the thread still on the needle and weave that in and out of the loops all around the circle.  When you pull it taught it will form a little pouch to which you add some filling.  You then pull it tighter until the ball/button is formed and give it a quick knot with the beginning tail.  

I didn't cut the thread just yet.  There is some gapping on the back where you can see the filling which I wanted to hide so I used the extra thread to weave around the spoked to cover that up a bit more.  (Sorry, no picture.)  Then I trimmed the threads to the same size.

This was the first one that I had tried and the weave is a little looser than I liked, and you can't see where I added the extra length of thread as it is mostly towards the back.  

I finished this one today.

So, depending on how much you stuff it you see the approximate finished size.  

They remind me of sea urchins.  

I will be trying out some more of the colors soon and maybe see what I can do with them.  I imagine these would have been very ornamental on the clothing that they were used on in addition to being functional.  

Let me mention that this weaving is a bit time consuming - it took me about an hour from start to finish.  But I did find that I can use my Cubii when I'm doing it.  I asked for the Cubii for Christmas and Santa found a good deal and came through.  It sits under the table and I can pedal away while I'm working on the computer, or in this case, weaving.  It's not the greatest for drawing or painting because of the movement, but it's perfect for browsing or watching videos.  And now weaving.

I wish I had had one of these under my desk at work.  I bet I would have pedalled around the world several times over the years.