Button, button, who’s got the button

That would be me.

I love buttons. Now, one might think that with 3 lbs. of wooden buttons, I’d be unlikely to ever need to buy another button. But not everything calls for a wooden button, right? Some projects need glass. Some projects need metal.

And some projects need beautiful, beautiful clay.

Cherry Blossoms

Some projects need to mix it up with different sizes and shapes.

Raspberry Chocolate Ganache

Some projects need lots of bright colors.

Raspberry Fields

I’d favorited Tessa Ann’s etsy shop back when I was first looking through etsy for buttons, but hadn’t had an occasion to go back until recently. About 2 weeks ago, a friends posted in the Three Irish Girls KAL group asking for help in finding buttons for a completed project. I probably would have joined in the hunt anyway, but she earburned me because she’d already checked one of my favorite sellers…so I took the request in the spirit of a challenge. I’m good at spending other people’s money.

I checked out all of my etsy favorites first, and although I couldn’t find any that fit the given guidelines at Tessa Ann’s store, I fell in love with the buttons again so hard that I linked her shop in my post just as future reference for anyone looking for buttons (I was actually the 2nd person to link it, so I can’t take all the credit, I guess)–it occurred to me that all those saturated colors could be a great match for a lot of the Three Irish Girls colorways.

Rhonnie was the other person who’d posted about Tessa Ann, so she and I got to chatting about her buttons.  I mused, “I’m thinking I need to design something around some of those…”

And Rhonnie answered, “Yeah! Design something cute, easy and quick to knit up…cause I wanna make it too!”

The gauntlet had been thrown down…

So I headed back to Tessa Ann’s store and began looking through her buttons, while considering which Three Irish Girls yarns I had that weren’t already dedicated to other projects. And I immediately thought of my Kate on McClellan Fingering. I’d originally purchased it to make a Stripey Toddler Cardi for Lexie…but I’d never gotten around to it. I’m pretty sure I let other projects bump it because the idea of knitting a full cardigan in fingering weight yarn–even toddler sized–sounded a bit tedious.

But I love the yarn…and I love the base…and I loved the buttons I was finding that had the same pinks, and white, and brown, and green… And the different button sets were giving me ideas on where and how I could use the buttons, on a short, lacy cardigan for a little girl to wear on a spring/fall day…

So, I bought 4 sets that could work–the 3 above and one other one. They arrived while I was out of town, so I was excited to see them when I got home. And I love them all. They’re just gorgeous…and I’m keeping the Raspberry Chocolate Ganache set out of sight of the children, ’cause they really do look good enough to eat. The only problem was that the browns in the button were warmer than the browns on the yarn. The bamboo in the McClellan gives the colors a cooler tinge. But someone pointed out that one of the sets had just small bits of brown that might work.

Raspberry Vine

Kate on Three Irish Girls McClellan Fingering

I think she’s right. It’s even more obvious in person without the slight glare. And Rhonnie has picked out the yarn she wants to make her item in. Gauntlet picked up.

(For the record, I found the original poster not just one, but two button options that she liked, so she bought both and is going to see which works best. Other people’s money…I can spend it.)

3 lbs of wooden buttons

Oh yes I did.

I love handmade buttons.  Yes, it can be a higher investment, but not much more than high-quality mass-produced buttons…and I figure that if I’ve spent money on artisan yarn and my time to lovingly handcraft clothing for family or friends, it’s worth the slightly higher expense.

For this, etsy has been my friend…and my nemesis.  There really are a lot of great options on etsy, if you can find them.  The first time I tried to search for handmade buttons, almost all of my options were pin-back buttons, not sewing buttons, and it took several attempts to figure out all of the terms I needed to exclude in order to eliminate them all.  Then I had to figure out how to eliminate all of the options I didn’t like–especially the misfiled items.  While I understand sellers wanting to get their items in front of the largest possible audience, if your buttons are not handmade, don’t label them as handmade.  Maybe you’ll lure a few people, but I’m willing to bet you’ll alienate more.

Eventually, I had 5 times more exclusionary terms than inclusive terms, but I finally had the buttons I wanted to see.  At the time, I was looking for buttons for my February Lady Sweater, which I was knitting in a medium blue wool/silk blend.  For that sweater, I found some great pewter buttons from Pewter Buttons & Supplies for Fiber Artists.  He had a stamped pattern that was called Starstruck but looked like 4-leaf clovers to me…and since I was using Three Irish Girls yarn, that seemed perfect.  The only problem is that the buttons weren’t the size I wanted, so I placed a request for a custom order.

Perfect.

But in the meantime, I’d found several other etsy stores selling buttons I liked.  One of them was Wooden Treasures, where Jay makes (among other things) buttons from branches.  I fell in love with the organic look of the buttons, complete with bark, slight size differences and all the irregularities in shape found in nature (although Jay also makes barkless buttons, as well as buttons that are cut to uniform sizes and shapes).  It wasn’t what I was thinking of for my FLS, but I was also working on a sweater for my son…and I thought those rough-looking but so-smooth-to-the-touch buttons would set off the yarn perfectly.

I was right.

I was a decidedly happy customer after that purchase, so I decided to stock up on some more when Jay was having a sale.  I looked for buttons in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wood types–I love the various exotic woods he uses–and got a nice little stash started:

I haven’t used any of those buttons yet, so I wasn’t really looking for any more.

And then I saw he was selling buttons for a wholesale price.  So I ordered a few…lots.  Big ones.  Jay emailed me right after I placed the order to tell me he and his wife were out of town so there’d be a delay; was that ok?  Sure–I didn’t have any immediate plans for them, but I really appreciated the communication.  Jay made sure to keep my updated on his progress and promised me some amazing buttons to compensate me for the delay.

He delivered.  First, there was a set of gorgeous toggle buttons:

I really love toggle buttons but haven’t found any mass produced ones that I like at all.  These are stunning.  Then, I purchased a varied lot of 52 buttons:

I adore the variety of sizes, shapes, and wood species.  I really can’t imagine being unable to find a button for just about any cardigan for me. And then there was this bonus:

After counting several times, I realized I wasn’t sure where these 6 buttons fit into my order.  They were packaged separately, so they weren’t part of the big lot (oh, yes–we haven’t gotten to the big lot yet).  But they weren’t part of the 52.  So I can only assume Jay threw them in as a bonus.  And I love them.  I love the size, the shape, the colors.

I was also looking for some more regularly shaped buttons…and I love his dark exotic wood buttons.  These are bocote wood from South America:

And then, just in case I’d ever want another wooden button again…I bought the lot of 120:

I haven’t yet divvied these up, but it’s clear there’s several different sets in here. As you can see from the quarter included for size reference (which was in all the pictures), some of these buttons are very large. They’ll be perfect for single button (or 2 button sweaters)–can you just see a sweet little girls sweater with one over-sized wood button? I can…

So…if you’re looking for stunning handmade wooden buttons, I couldn’t recommend Jay at Wooden Treasures more highly.  In fact, I just today I recommended them to some friends, and one of them bought 3 lots.  So browse at your own risk!