More buttons and garden update

 I've been fiddling around with making some new buttons.   I wanted to make some shirtwaist buttons and some zwirnknopf buttons, both thread buttons in the same category.  They are a wrapped button, secured with stitches and the button hole stitch border is applied after the threads are wrapped.   They apparently work best on a flat ring like a washer or spacer, rather than a round ring.   I made my first one with a round ring that I use for Dorset buttons.  It was okay, but the roundness of the wire made the wraps more difficult to keep secure and in place.   I ended up starting like a Dorset button and doing the button hole stitch all around the ring first, so that the wrapping threads would have something to grip on to.   This worked well, although not really a zwirnknopf button due to doing that step first.

When I tried to do it properly, with the wrapping threads first, they just keep sliding, even after applying beeswax to the ring and then sanding the ring.   When I tried a smaller ring, it seemed to work with lots of beeswax but every time I went to secure the stitches, they'd just slide off.  It was frustrating.  So other than ordering the appropriate button rings from the U.K., I went on field trip to various local hardware stores looking for washers that were flat rings, with a narrow rim and a large opening in the middle.  I didn't care if they were metal, plastic or fibre board.  Nothing came up at all.  Finally Hubby found a short length of ABS pipe and said he'd slice it up for me to try.   After several attempts and being told it wouldn't work, I was presented with a handful of thin slices of ABS pipe for buttons.  They needed sanding which was no problem and they're  about 1.5 inches in diameter, so too larger for useable buttons, but great for decorative buttons, shawl pins and jewellery,  The plus is that size is also really easy to work with.    The two buttons on the right are shirtwaist buttons and the bunny button is an art Dorset button.  I think it's cute!

This tomato is larger than my hand.   It survived the tree falling on the garden when it was very small and just keeps growing.  My Son in law started the seeds and it's a Mortgage Lifter heritage variety. It's taken a bit for the rest of the tomato plants to catch up after being crushed by the tree in the storm.  

They really only started flowering a week ago.   There are a few chocolate cherry tomatoes and a few more of these mortgage lifters, although they are still small.  I hope that there is time for more of the fruit to set.  We really only have a few more weeks of actual summer, before it will get too cool in the evenings.  I'll snip off all the growth tips  and flowers on the tomatoes then, in hopes of forcing the rest of the fruit that has set to actually ripen.  

Beaded Dorset Buttons

 All the peppers and tomatoes are in the pots.   All the flowers for the deck are planted, although I just realized that I've been watering Geranium cuttings all winter, and I have an empty hanging basket that I should pop them into.   I just found out why the parsley plant didn't do well last year, and not only because of the swallowtail butterflies.   There is a chipmunk that likes parsley and I see him at the planter, nibbling away at the leaves and stalks!  It's supposed to be rainy on Saturday, so I've planned for some time on Sunday to finish up planting the seeds.  Beans, cururbits, Kale and chard on deck please!

I was playing around with Dorset Buttons a couple of nights ago and learned how to add beads to my buttons.  There is a rug hooker that does Dorset buttons as well, but she uses heavier yarns and larger rings to make them.  She adds all her beads after the buttons are finished and just sews them on.   I didn't think that would work with my buttons.  The Dorset buttons I make, are smaller and with finer threads, so I learned several different ways, including adding them while winding the spokes and sewing them on afterwards using  3 different methods. I'm pretty pleased with my first attempt.   I used Perle cotton and some nice glass beads.   Next time I'm at a textile store, I'll check for some beading needles with larger eyes, just to make things a little bit easier. What I had worked adequately, just not as easily as I'd hoped.

This is another attempt with Perle cotton and glass bugle beads.  It's smaller than the blue button.  I think the ring was too small for the space the bugle beads take up, as some of them are pushed down a bit.  Auto correct keeps trying to make it seem like I'm using Beagle beads, rather than bugle beads, which is kind of funny.   Apparently bugle beads come in different diameters, which seem to vary by very small amounts, like .2mm, .4mm, .7 mm larger.  Really, it might be fun to try, but I'm not in any hurry to source these as I can't imagine that what I made wouldn't work for most purposes for which I might need it.  These work fine for me.  Gina B Silkworks has some interesting button tutorials on YouTube, which are really well done.

FLEECE UPDATE: I've two lovely white fleeces washed already.  I have the remaining 3/4 of the Icelandic fleece washed.  It was a really enticing grey, but I didn't enjoy spinning it.  I gave some away and I'll try again with the rest.  I washed up a bit of New Zealand merino that I've been carting around for a while too, just to get it out of the way.    I've a fabulous black fleece and two more white fleeces to wash, as well as half an amazing cria (baby alpaca) fleece that I can't wait to work with.  Guess what I'm doing this summer?

May - may there be no more snow, may it stop raining, may the lawnmower start up because the grass is growing!

These socks are a pair.   There was no repeat in the sock yarn!   There was one which at first looked close, but it was missing one of the colour repeats, so after much fussing, I just kept on knitting.  They are fun though and definitely bright and colourful.   The colourway was called flame.  They were nice to knit up, and fairly fast.   I used a square heel, also called a Dutch heel.  It doesn't fit me quite as nicely as the flap and gusset heel, but it seems faster and more simple to knit.  Once the socks are on my feet for a couple of minutes, I can't tell the difference, so I consider that a win.  

I knit another pair of socks after this one, but despite
checking the dye lots on two skeins, they are noticeably (at least to me) different shades and I'm still ticked off about that.  Since they aren't planned differences, I kind of expect the reds and browns to be a bit closer in colour than just similar.

After two pairs of chaos socks, one which didn't match sort of on purpose and one that didn't match due to dye lot issues, I decide to play around with some buttons.  I have a lot of odd bits and bobs left from my crazy quilting days.  I grabbed some plastic and metal rings and started making some Dorset buttons.  The first two too a bit of time and effort because I'd been using 2/8 cotton.  I learned a lot though and that is what I'd use if I couldn't find the appropriate linen thread if I were making reproduction buttons.  However, I was just making fun buttons, so I dragged out the crazy quilting threads and started experimenting.  Not all of them worked, but I was trying to see what threads worked and what didn't.  So embroidery thread covers well, but you need to reduce the strands used, as you go down in button ring mould sizes.  Rayon threads are very shiny and super slippery.  That slipperyness causes the threads to not lay nicely or to pack in properly.  They weren't fun to use.  Perle cotton was nice.   Weirdly, some cheap 2 ply embroidery cotton worked so very nicely on the larger rings. 

Making these buttons works nicely for keeping my hands busy in the evening.  This means when DH has a game on, or is watching something gory on the tv, I have something to occupy myself with.   He's finally getting around to watching Game of Thrones and I can't tell you how many socks and how many of these buttons I've made while they kill off most of the main characters and all of the extras, in flaming, bloody battles.

Off topic - a few years ago, a guild member took me to a fibre arts group meeting in another town.   I was told they were welcoming and friendly.  However, because I'd brought a spinning wheel and some bits of roving with me, rather than a weird and funky arty project,  they were all rather cool, until I told them that yes, I did crazy quilting.  They they were a bit friendlier.  There was a drum carder set up in the room, and was told that I could use it.  So I blended some of my roving together to make this gorgeous fuchsia batt and proceeded to spin it.   Then I was told that it must have been from an indie dyer they knew.  When I told them I'd just blended it, they looked at me like I was an idiot, called me a liar and ignored me the rest of the afternoon.   It was hilarious as I watched them pat each on on the back for some of the iffiest projects I'd ever seen, but that they had no idea you could take multiple colours of fibre and card them together for optical colours.  I didn't go back but every time I think of or see a crazy quilt, or the threads I'd used to decorate them, it brings back that particular memory.

Yes, the rain seems to have finally stopped, but the promised sunshine is nowhere to be seen yet!