Chatting with the local farmer’s wives, aka some friends at a socially acceptable six-foot distance, we spoke briefly on the riveting topic of buttons. Having used my new glue a mere six hours after purchase to apply button noses to some gnomes just yesterday, I began reflecting on the buttons of my childhood.
My mother had a jar – well two jars of buttons. One jar was for the white buttons, the other for the colored buttons. It sounds racist, but there were always white buttons on shirts so we had a ton of them. It was acceptable to separate them for ease of sorting. And sorting is what my sister and I would do while Mom sewed in her room.
We would dump those buttons out and separate them, trade them, fight over the one that had a rhinestone in it, make up games with them, create button families. Cheap entertainment, and yet I can place myself right back there on the floor of her sewing room doing it.
Today I have my own button jars, segregated in a similar fashion. And I still can’t throw a button away when I get an extra one sewn on a shirt or skirt or coat. I’ve even cut them off of clothing that ends up in the rag bin! They just pile up, waiting for a project to need them. Maybe that project will come to light during this home-bound time?
You could always make attempt # at creating a “button bowl” with them! haha