Life is a Button Jar!

Upon returning home for the Montpelier VA Fiber Festival, I stopped at a wonderful sign covered cottage with a yard overflowing with salvaged wooden shutters, jars, planters, cans, iron garden ornaments and wonderful stuff. The outside spoke of wonderful treasure to be explored inside and I was not disappointed!

I found several bits and pieces of lace and some doilies and then this magnificent Blue canning jar stuffed full of buttons and bits. It was not as clean and pristine as you see it now but it was loaded with buttons all strung, by type, on cords to keep them organized. It was such fun to dump it out and go thru the contents and to think about the person who spent so much time and care to keep the buttons all sorted. After a good washing in a bowl of hot water and Dawn dish washing soap, I went thru the contents for a third time. below you can see pictures of some of the best cleaned treasure.

I would love to know what these red hook type things are. Any ideas??? They are made from sturdy red plastic have three holes in the round plate and have the rounded hook that sits on top of a stem. Are they for stockings to attach to girdles??? I am clueless! As you can see, they were all neatly strung together.

This is an enormous string of vintage cut crystal nail head beads. they are flat on one side and rounded and faceted on the other. the hole for attaching runs along the same plane as the flat back. There are so many that I am going to bag them up and offer them in groups of 12 in my Etsy shop.
I found all manner of Mother of Pearl beauties, with shanks and without and in every size from very large to tiniest of tiny!!! LOVE LOVE These!!!
There were also several varieties of vintage plastic buttons that will be added to other collections and may find their way to my Etsy shop as well!

I finished another chain maille piece in a new design. this piece has been sent off to my niece Mali who is now a sophomore at Colgate university. Her 20th (OMG< Cannot believe this) was in September but by now she has learned that Aunt Elizabeth is very rarely on time with Birthday gifts but they are usually worth waiting for !! This pattern is called Vertebrae and was taught to me by the amazing Carol at Beads on Parade in Fredericksburg. Carol's teaching abilities are amazing. She will sit down at the drop of a hat to teach any chain maille pattern that one wishes to learn!! I added the silver Magnatuma beads as I must add more beads to everything. the movement in this pattern is such fun. I hope Mali will enjoy wearing it!

As we finally saw the return of the sun I spent a good deal of time setting up for some new sun prints. This time I kept track of the time that it takes me to prepare my pieces for their sun exposure. In the pictures below you can see 6 panels with floral elements placed on the wet paint covered fabric, just after they were placed in the sun. It took 2 and a half hours to prep, place and arrange these panels for drying!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Each foliage or floral element is gathered, placed and secured either by straight pins or by a firm finger squish, tot he wet fabric. this is not done by simply sprinkling the elements over the fabric. I was very surprised to note the amount of time that this process took! No wonder my back hurt when I have done this standing and hunched over a low bench. In future I must set up a station where I can sit or stand comfortably, for this part of the process.!
These two panels were covered with individual hydrangea bracts and various leaves. the prints turned out very well and I hope to have them available very soon in my Etsy Shop!!

As if this were not enough, daughter dear let me know that she wanted to participate in some high school homecoming activities and she needed a Zelda costume by today. That request came on Friday. So with promises to help in all tasks, we set off for the fabric store with pictures of Princess Zelda- of video game fame, in hand. Becca painted fabric panels and crafted neck plates and jewels from polymer clay while I modified a dress pattern to become a top and skirt, in the EXACT color combo, to complete the ensemble. She has promised to let me take pictures as she heads out the door to Animation Day tomorrow. Her partner will be dressed up as Dark Link and they will join other teams of kids who have paired up for this School Spirit event. I promise to sneak a few pictures onto my next blog post, as long as you all promise not to tell her that I have done so!!!

Today, I hope to rearrange my sewing area and prepare for the next round of projects that have deadlines attached!!

I will try to keep my blogging duties more timely, but if you don't hear form me for a few days you know that I am very busy!!!!