Embroidered Buttons: Dorset Button Tutorial!
Dorset Buttons are buttons embroidered around a ring and filled with simple stitches. They are colorful, relatively easy to make, can decorate anything from clothing to accessories, and present an endless variety for embellishment, texture, and color.
Dorset Buttons have been around for a long time! It was a cottage industry in England (specifically in Dorset, hence the name). Read the history of button making in Dorset - it's pretty interesting! These buttons are a neat little chapter in the history of textiles. Sadly enough, when button-making machines came along, this vital cottage industry died, leaving many families poverty-stricken, since they were no longer able to rely on their craft of button-making for survival.
On a website called "The Sampler," there's a wonderful step-by-step tutorial for making Dorset buttons.
Take a look at the tutorial, and you'll see that the options of embellishing these buttons are really endless! A little knowledge of embroidery stitches will help - buttonhole stitch and the ribbed spider web will come in handy.
Once the outside of the button is done and a foundation is laid inside, you can dress the thing up to your heart's content!
I think these buttons would look great on chunky sweaters, on totes, on knitted winter caps ---- and on and on and on! I also think (though I haven't tried it yet) that they would be a good project for younger embroiderers on winter days! I may test that latter theory - if winter ever gets here!
Enjoy the tutorial! And thanks to Craftypod for supplying it!
Dorset Buttons have been around for a long time! It was a cottage industry in England (specifically in Dorset, hence the name). Read the history of button making in Dorset - it's pretty interesting! These buttons are a neat little chapter in the history of textiles. Sadly enough, when button-making machines came along, this vital cottage industry died, leaving many families poverty-stricken, since they were no longer able to rely on their craft of button-making for survival.
On a website called "The Sampler," there's a wonderful step-by-step tutorial for making Dorset buttons.
Take a look at the tutorial, and you'll see that the options of embellishing these buttons are really endless! A little knowledge of embroidery stitches will help - buttonhole stitch and the ribbed spider web will come in handy.
Once the outside of the button is done and a foundation is laid inside, you can dress the thing up to your heart's content!
I think these buttons would look great on chunky sweaters, on totes, on knitted winter caps ---- and on and on and on! I also think (though I haven't tried it yet) that they would be a good project for younger embroiderers on winter days! I may test that latter theory - if winter ever gets here!
Enjoy the tutorial! And thanks to Craftypod for supplying it!
Labels: embroidered buttons, embroidery resources, historical needlework, needlework tutorials
Posted By: Mary Corbet on Thursday, October 11, 2007
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1 Comments:
Thanks for this tip, Mary. I've tagged the tutorial for future reference. I could see these buttons as embellishment in encrusted embroidery and crazy quilts.
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