You cannot sew items inspired by the 1780s and 1790s without discovering that these decades did indeed see the height of ridiculousness when it came to button proportions. Buttons are on everything and they are huge. Check out the copious massive buttons on the green jacket above. Mostly they are also self-covered or carved wood or handworked metal. Sounds expensive and it is.
Yesterday I came across Gail's fabulous tutorial on how to make authentic self covered buttons...
http://artbeautyandwell-orderedchaos.blogspot.com/2009/08/covered-buttons-using-wooden-blanks.html (sorry I can't get to work as a link cut and paste instead)
Perfect, and if you are a pure historical costumer then I really recommend that you make the buttons in exactly the way she describes, with wood blanks. I however am not totally authentic and do like a bit of hidden modernity in my clothes if it makes laundering them that much easier.
So...I am using plastic shank buttons as the base instead of wood blocks but will otherwise handsew the fabric onto the buttons. And the best source of oversized plastic shank buttons? Ebay! I bought over 100 of them in various large sizes from 14mm right up to over 3cm in matching sets from a wonderful button merchant on there. And all of that for about $10. Couldn't be better in my book.
I like big but-tons and I cannot lie…
ReplyDeleteAs a costumer we cannot deny
That when you see a jacket with a sash round the waist
And big round things going up towards the face
You go "Oooooh"
OK, sorry, that was terrible :-P I just couldn't resist!
And if you pop over to my blog there is a little award for you :-)
Ha! I'm a button freak from way back. Part of my current struggle with the jacket monster is about the pitifully small buttons on certain sections. They NEED to be bigger.
ReplyDeleteOh! An award for moi? Must pop on over....
I love buttons and if they are big and elaborate then it's even better.
ReplyDeleteI really need to make myself a 80-90's jacket so can go overboard with big buttons :P
I really want you to make one too, so I can see pics and swoon...
ReplyDeleteMy only quibble: "these decades did indeed see the height of ridiculousness when it came to button proportions"... I think you mean "the height of perfection when it came to buttong proportions" ;D Big buttons are far too much fun. Maybe I watched too much of the Borrowers as a child...
ReplyDeleteI wish I knew what the Borrowers was, especially if it showcased big buttons..:p
ReplyDeleteThey are little people who live in your house and 'borrow' the things they need to get by! Originally children's books by Mary Norton, I grew up with the BBC TV series: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E06745B83350C9B3 . And there was an American film, but I never saw that. because they used whatever they could salvage from houses, etc, they wore human-size buttons, which were giant on them! Couldn't find a pic of the buttons, alas. It's possibly responsible for my love of oversized things...
ReplyDelete