Dorset Buttons on the Go!

I can't stop making Dorset Buttons.  There are so many colorful threads to try!  I needed something small to fit in my purse -- for trips in the car, intermission during a performance, or just waiting in line somewhere.  Here is what I came up with.

Wow, I only had one empty tin of those 'Curiously Strong Peppermints.'  Guess I'd better start eating them again.  I decoupaged a piece of wrapping paper to the lid.  (To do this, you don't need to cut the wrapping paper exactly the same size, just use a scrap that is larger than the top of the tin.)  Brush the decoupage medium on the top of the tin, place the paper on it, then apply more medium on top of the paper.  Squeeze out the bubbles as much as possible.  When the paper is completely dry (wait a day), use an emery board to trim the paper all around the top edge.  Works perfectly.

Here is the tin with enough supplies to make several Dorset buttons!

Yes, you can really fit all this stuff in the tin:  several empty plastic rings, four floss holders with various threads on them, several buttons finished or in progress, an emery board cut to fit (sometimes the plastic rings have to be smoothed along the mold lines), a glass vial that holds tapestry needles, and a pair of fold-up scissors.

 

I love my on-the-go Dorset Button Kit!

See us on Etsy!

We opened an Etsy shop!

It has taken us a few weeks to get it ready, but it's been a really fun and interesting process.  We're starting small, and we haven't got all the kinks worked out, but we've learned a few things along the way that we thought were worth sharing.  And, within 12 hours of opening we had our first sale - whoopie!

We had a good reason for opening the shop - we decided that we had amassed too much crafty goodness!  We love our stash, but we just have too much.  We kept thinking - wouldn't a craft swap store, a place were you could sell craft supplies that are great but just aren't getting used  - be a fab idea?  If only there were such a store...ok, we'll open one then!  And we thought it would be wonderful to have a place to share our creative efforts - patterns and kits and the like that we created.

So, What's in a Name

Milleseme et Mercerie.  What does this mean?  Why did we choose it?

This picture was taken last summer - towards the end of a fabulous trip we took to England and Paris.  This picture, in fact, was taken in Paris, on the Pont Alexandre III:

 

So, Mom likes Paris - and French!  We liked the notion of a Mercantile, or a Dry Goods Store, and we liked the notion of Notions.  We love things that have a vintage feel - and are actually vintage. We spent a few days tossing around words and ideas, and then came up with the idea of putting these words into Google Translate (total aside - as a teacher with a HIGH population of ELL students I found this invaluable!) and our store name was born - a vintage haberdashery!

Detour to Paris

Speaking of fabulous haberdasheries, if you are ever in Paris, we STRONGLY recommend you go here: 

Why didn't I take any pictures in this store?!?  Oh, I know...because I was too astounded by the store to do anything but SHOP!!!  Here are some of the goodies:

There is so much more...they also sell their yarn by weight - I love that!  The interior of the store is lined mountains of yarn, bolts of beautiful fabric, baskets, glass bottles, and wooden cabinets full of buttons, feathers, felt and findings.  GO!!!

Back to our shop!

We are slowly building up our inventory - by combing through our stash and saying - oh, someone else will love this!  Each entry takes a bit of time - the pictures have to be just so, and the wording as well.  We are practicing our Search Engine Optimization - choosing the best search terms so that people can find our shop.  As it turns out, when Google sends it's little search bots out into the ether, they only look at the first 40 characters of a listing.  Who knew?  As it turns out, Tim Adam knew! We've read his book on opening an Etsy shop and we found it very useful.  If Etsy selling is in your future, I would recommend reading it.  Did I mention that we made a sale in less than 12 hours?

Here is a sampling of some of our current inventory.  Please check back from time to time, and see if we've added something new that just HAS to come live at your house - until you turn it into something beautiful!

Kumihimo Kit

Quilt Kit

Vintage Black Glass Bead Trim

 

Visit our Etsy shop, Milleseme et Mercerie.

Button Addictions

Various Dorset & Thread Wrapped Buttons, made into a brooch

My daughter and I took a Jane Austen trip to England last summer, Jane Austen +1.  I had read, probably in Piecework Magazine, about a button exhibit in Macclesfield and asked Kathy to see if it could be added to our itinerary if it was not too out of the way.  It wasn't, just a couple short train rides on a travel day, and we spent the most wonderful afternoon in Macclesfield.  This small-ish industrial city was home to the silk industry in England, and there are several sites and museums definitely worth a visit!  We had a really interesting tour of the Paradise Mill and watched our guide operate several of the restored Jacquard looms.

The reason for our side trip to Macclesfield was to see the 300 buttons submitted by fiber artists from around the world, and although the exhibit is history, you can read about it here.  It was a very colorful and interesting exhibit, and we each purchased a button from the exhibit, to be mailed to us after the exhibit came down.  It was so fun to get a package from the UK after we got home!

In the museum gift shop I purchased a book called Buttons: A Passementerie Workshop Manual by Gina Barrett.  The book covers all types of thread buttons, including the Dorset, which I have been making and teaching to friends.  I also ordered a DVD from Gina, which really helped as I couldn't quite grasp the technique by reading the book only. 

This Saturday I am teaching members of my EGA chapter the basic Dorset button, and attached is a Google document of instructions that I have developed, click here. 

Assorted Dorset buttons made with (clockwise from pink button) crochet cotton, lace weight yarn, poly crochet thread, nylon/wool sewing thread, Lizbeth tatting thread, hand dyed pearl cotton, and sock yarn.  You could even use worsted weight yarn, to match a sweater you are making, but you would use only one ply.

I really like the linen embroidery floss, below.  I think I used two strands to cover the ring, and one strand for the center.  I was experimenting with trying to make a spiral design, right, but haven't figured it out yet.

Earring experiment:

 

Key chain and a cell phone charm (as though a cell phone needed a charm....):

 

When Kathy was visiting I showed her how to make Dorset buttons one afternoon, and she went to town!

So far people seem to like this one the best!

In my next, advanced class, we're going to tackle Morning Star (left) and Death's Head (right) buttons:

To view a good tutorial (lots of photographs) of Dorset button making, visit Craftystylish.com

Visit my Pinterest page for more Dorset button inspiration: 

http://www.pinterest.com/alcearosea/dorset-thread-buttons/

Eek, I can't stop making buttons!  Every time I see a new thread I think, hmmm, how would this look in a Dorset button!

Art Vending Machine! Own a minature work of art for $5 !!

The Powerhouse Arts Center recently installed "ARTomaton," and art vending machine.  What a great idea!  It's really fun; there are mini-prints, artist trading cards, post card art, wooden tops, jewelry, and more.  You can own a small art or craft masterpiece for only $5 !!  While the ARTomaton is currently at the Powerhouse, it will be moving around Oxford to different venues.

 

I brought a basket of items to the Powerhouse this morning to put in the ARTomaton.  This is my messy craft desk after working all weekend to get some things ready:  



Since Valentine's Day is this Friday, all my entries are Valentine themed.  I did a Fabric YoYo Valentine pin class at the library recently (see end of blog for a direction sheet):

 

So I decided to put my two class samples in the ARTomaton.  Here is one packaged for the machine.  I made the backing card in Word, attached the pin to a Dollar Store valentine, and used little heart shaped brads to attach to the backing card.  A bonus tiny bag of sequins and stickers is also attached with a tiny brad:

 

I decided to also make up a couple kits for the Valentine YoYo pin, in case someone wants to make their own.

 

You can use YoYo's to make and decorate all sorts of fun things!  Head band, barrette, hat, purse, flip flops, push pins, magnet, best-of-show rosette, earrings, brooch, bracelet, necklace, boutonniere, corsage, and hair clips:



The most fun thing to make for the vending machine was a kit for embellishing Valentine cards with embroidery floss and glitter.  Dollar stores are good places to shop for craft supplies, especially the "everything is one dollar" type of store.  (The hardware store is also a good place to find cool craft supplies.)  Here are the contents for the kit, some of which were found at Dollar Tree (link here for their craft pages):

 

First I made up some sample cards to see if this idea would work.  One yard of embroidery floss is knotted at one end, with a 3" tail beyond the knot.  At the other end I applied Tacky Glue to the last inch.  This hard end can be used to thread the floss through the card.  A yard was more than enough.  

 

The card is set down on a piece of scrap paper for glittering.  Glue is applied in selective places -- dots, squiggles, hearts.  Only a very small amount of white glue is needed.  The glitter is poured over the glue and left for a minute.  Then the glitter is poured onto the piece of scrap paper.  Tap the card to get all the extra glitter off. 

 

 

I used my electric drill to make the holes in a stack of cards (since the kits are designed for children to use without a needle, thusly holes are pre-made on each card).  I have a tiny hole punch, but really did not want to punch hundreds of holes -- 60 on each card, six cards in each kit!

 

Directions for embellishing the cards was included in each kit, with the warning that adult supervision is needed for smaller children, especially with the glitter!  (If you right click on the directions here and below, and open in a new window, you should be able to read it easily and enlarge it further.  You can also save to your computer and print the directions.)



The finished kit on background card to fit in the vending machine.  I added an extra little bag of sequins and stickers:

 

Here are directions for making the Fabric YoYo Valentine Pin.  For my students I printed the directions on 8 1/2 x 11" card stock, so you will need to enlarge the page of directions to letter size.  Cardstock is a nice weight to make the templates.

 





 Happy Valentine's Day !

 



 



Isn't Technology Grand?

Recently my parents bought me a new iPad for my birthday (thanks Mom and CC!).  It was just in the nick of time, as I was leaving my job which had given me an iPad to use while I worked for them.  I decided to throw myself headfirst into appreciating my new gift by making it as functional as possible - so I bought a Bluetooth keyboard to go along with it!

And what place does this post have on a blog dedicated to creativity?  Good question!  Answer: I made a lovely protective case for my keyboard - and I used a wonderful app in the design process.   These are both things that I thought were worth sharing, so here we go!

The Materials Used:

Mom and I took an amazing trip to England and Paris this past summer, and as crafty sorts we came home with suitcases full of crafty things - including this delicious art nouveau fabric from Liberty of London (the ACTUAL Liberty of London!!!) and this package of buttons from The Button Queen - an unassuming little shop that will absolutely knock your socks off, if buttons are your thing!  Can't remember where I got the striped fabric - it's reminiscent of men's suiting material.  The other material here is a thin polyester batting, to provide a bit of cushioning for the keyboard.

Bamboo Paper is Amazing!

And this is the app that helped me to design the keyboard case - Bamboo Paper by Wacom (just to be clear, I'm not associated with them in any way - I just think this is a cool use of the app and thought others might like it too!).  With my new iPad I took pictures of some of the materials and inserted the pictures right into the Notebook.  Then you can edit and annotate to your heart's content.  I love this!  I have a highly portable, easily transferable digital record of my creative work!  Coolio!

I cut the three fabrics into identical rectangles per the dimensions on my schematic.  BTW, the picture above was literally a picture of my iPad that I took with my camera.  Low tech.  The picture below is High Tech - Bamboo Paper can share pages from a Notebook with Evernote as .png files - I feel so technologically competent!

On to the Build

So, I sewed the three fabrics together in this order...

If you look closely at the bottom of the picture you can see that the Liberty print is right side down, with the striped material right side up.  Bottom layer is the batting.  I sewed a narrow seam around the edge of the rectangle, leaving a small opening to turn the sewn fabrics right-side-round.

My Secret Weapon

I have a secret weapon for turning fabrics and getting those pesky corners as crisp as possible.  Sometimes you have to look at what you already have on hand and see if you can find a new use for it.  Here it is:

The Knit Lite is a brilliant tool - literally - for people who want to be able to knit in the dark!

There is actually an LED light in the pointy end of the knitting needle!  Clover made these - I'm not sure they still do - but everything they do is genius.  Oh Clover, you're breaking my heart!

A la Missy Elliot

Oh my!  Anyways, I flipped it and reversed it...

...ironed it, and added the narrowest edging stitch I could manage...

...and double checked that the keyboard was still going to fit...

...and put a pin in it to mark my place...

...as it turned out, I could sew an even narrower seam than I thought:

Yup, that purple thread is the seam.  I couldn't believe it didn't fall off the side while I was sewing it!  I miscalculated and forgot to add enough width to account for reversing the seam, so I just changed my plan.  Worked out fine.

Buttonhole, Baby!

I got to break in the buttonhole foot on my sewing machine to finish this up - it was dead simple.  Just stick the button in the top half of the foot, and the machine does the rest.  I literally rested my head in my hand while it worked!

The Finished Product

I'm delighted with the keyboard, the case and the app that helped me to create it!  Isn't technology grand?

Vintage Lace - Storage & Preservation

When Lulu and Arthur were in the antique business in the 1970's, the owner of a store in Adams, The Grove, called them to see if they would be interested in buying the contents of a storage room.  They went to look at the stuff, and Lulu gleefully said "Yes!"  Now Carolyn and I have most of that collection of vintage machine made laces, ribbons, trims, veils, even a few millinery flowers.

For many years I have had a note attached to the two files boxes that contained my collection of vintage lace trims, "Get lace off cardboard!"  The old pieces of cardboard the trims were wrapped around aren't really good for storing lace.  The cardboard is acidic; and acid free containers and materials are not inexpensive.

I finally got around to the project one afternoon last week, thinking that's all it would take, one afternoon.  Three days later I was still working on it.  But it was worth the effort.  The lace trims are now in a more acid free environment, plus I got to re-visit my large (probably too large) collection of vintage trims, and it is now more easily accessible.  Which means I will use it more.

I thought it would be cute to wrap some of the laces around old thread spools and clothespins and store them in an old Necco candy jar I bought several years ago, when I worked in an antique shop in Arlington.  First I tore old sheets into strips to cover the wood spools and clothespins (wood also is not good for vintage anything).  I shop at the Goodwill store for old sheeting which I use for dust covers around my house in the spring when it gets very dusty.  Here are the cotton-covered spools ready for use:

One of the spools above is wrapped in lace.  So the lace will not come undone while in the large candy jar, I take two back stitches in the lace, using a small tapestry needle, in a color that is visible against the white lace.  These back stitches can be easily removed.  Leave a couple inches loose at the end, so you can see what the lace pattern looks like.

I put another piece of sheeting on the floor, to unwind the lace off the old cardboard.

There was a LOT of lace!

Most of the lace trims were too long to wind around the spools, so I just wrapped around my fingers and made into neat bundles.  They are stored in a large decorative box I found at Michaels, half price.  I lined the box with more sheeting.

Here is my old Necco candy jar with the lace wrapped spools and clothespins:

I also wanted to have some of the laces decorate my craft shelves.  A cardboard tube left over from Christmas wrapping paper was covered with strips of old sheeting which I cut on the bias.  A string ties it to the metal shelf:

I left a pale yellow lace (above) on the cardboard it came on, as it was stamped "Made in France" and it was so pretty.  But I unwound the lace, covered the cardboard with sheeting, and re-wrapped it.

It was interesting to see what the clerks in the old Grove store wrapped some of the laces around:

Many of the laces had these papers pinned on them, indicating the yardage left and the "ceiling price," (4 cents on these labels), which I think would date them to the 1940's or before.

I also have some beaded trims from The Grove, which I may sell on Etsy.  Photos to come....