running1

luvTooQuilt... so glad you opened this thread...I'm a button-lover... and have the same stories as many of you here about playing with Grandmother's and Momma's buttons as a child... and yes, I still have the metal box of Momma's. But I used many of them recently to quilt a D9P made for my DSIL. I SID on the outside of the blocks, but placed a button in the middle of the large patch of each one. It turned out very cute and she and her DH love the quilt. I'm thrilled to see so many new ideas for buttons here... I've bookmarked all of them!!

Oh I just remembered a tiny button book I gave to Momma and now have... be right back...

It has all kinds of interesting tid-bits about buttons: We use the term "cops" for police because in 1844 NY Mayor James Harper put big copper buttons on the uniforms... They called them "coppers" and we've shortened it..

"Dough boys" originated during the Civil War when certain regiments wore large globular brass buttons that someone thought looked like a boiled dumpling. (He must have been hungry at the time?)

Martha Stewart: "Buttons are the fossils of the sartorial world, enduring long past the garments they were designed to hold together."

"You can have the shirt off my back--but you can't have the buttons." Nancy Bartholomew Fink 20th Century button collector and president of the National Button Society

Great stuff!! Thanks for inviting us to talk about buttons!!

desertrose

I could see saving pretty detailed buttons for an authentic Crazy Quilt, a Quirky Wall Hanging or a detail little girls quilt. Unless you have a nice glass jar and you want to use them to decorate your sewing room there aren't too many other choices for all the buttons. I'm sure there are plenty oof gals on the QB that would love to have some...

wtxpeach

I love buttons!!!! I don't know why!!!!

The only buttons that were ever given to me was a jar full of fabric-covered buttons. Not a big fan of these at all. They just stay in the jar.

If anyone wants to unload some small buttons, I am available to help out! LOL

3incollege

I love Buttons! I have tons of them, I also loved my grandmothers button box, I think it was a cigar box.
There is alot of history behide those and I still like to play with them .

craftymatt2

I love buttons also, when I go garage saleing and estate sales thats the first thing I look for. Then Fab. I have a lot, but they make nice add twos

patimint

I, too, love buttons. I do make things with them, but mostly they are in fancy glass jars and vases and just look pretty. When I was little (many, many years ago) I use to sit in my mothers sewing room and play with her buttons by the hour. I collect all sorts of buttons, but mostly antique buttons. If you would like, I can send you may address, hehe. You can give it to your friends and relatives & when they pick up buttons, they can give them to me instead of you.

MadQuilter

I don't collect them but when I see a bin, I can't pass it without running my hands through the buttons. Love the feel and the sound it makes. Once I added buttons as part of the quilting. 168 buttons later I was ready to commit something. lol

janb

I have been collecting buttons to use in tying a quilt.
So Glad to see others have done this also...

HummerGardenCrafts

I grab all the buttons I find at yard and garage sales. And the flea markets also. I use them on my doll dresses. And sometimes for eyes on bears and dolls.

butterflies5518

I just looked up the big book of buttons on amazon - $350.00! OMG I really want one, I too love buttons and have my Grandmothers.