Button, button ...

button quilt up closeBefore I go any further, thank you for all the kind words of support and encouragement as I work through closing my store. It has been so helpful and inspiring to read your messages, and really eased my worries. Thank you!!!

The work at the store is moving along, we've collected a lot of this and that in the last 8 years. It's fun going through it and looking back.

I have a vague memory about a button song (or game, or poem), but I can't find it anywhere on the Internet?

Well, without the button song here's the quilt ...

I started this last weekend, right before the craft show, because I just didn't have enough going on.

So I started it. I put two rows together and my quilt looked nothing like the pretty inspiration quilt. I hadn't made the corner triangles large enough even though her blog has a great description of how to make the quilt which was so helpful. I put it aside button quilt detail and backfor a day, wondering if I should start over. When I came back to it I decided I liked it, but then I thought perhaps I was just getting used to it ... kind of like the analogy Tim Gunn gave to Chris regarding his human hair clothing (which I did think was very odd, but so out of the box that he deserved credit for it, and it actually looked pretty, in a very weird way, on the model. I'd have loved to see his runway show.).

Whatever it was, I kept going and finished the top. Then I excitedly added the lovely red border to give it some "oomph", and it looked really weird because there was so much light color in the quilt, instead of the red looking like a great finishing touch I kept looking at it and just asking "why?". I'd hoped it'd pick up the reds in the quilt but it really didn't.
button quilt detail
"Carry on" as Tim Gunn would say (what's with the Tim Gunn? must have to do with the finale last night, which, while everything was very well made and they are all very talented, I found to be very uninspiring ... I was in bed before the winner was announced). I could not decide how to quilt this. I wanted to do some free motion quilting but it's not my forte (I need a lot more practice!). And then I got the idea to use the buttons instead of tying the corners. I got out a jar of vintage buttons we picked up in Arcadia (a post I can't find right now ... is there an easy way to search one's own posts?) and mixed in some new colorful ones. And it was fun. Some of the buttons were so unique, and some just so cool colorwise. I also tacked the corners to add button quiltstability to the batting. I stitched the border with three parallel rows.

The binding just seemed so perfect for this. Until I sewed it on. It's white. The quilt is not. The border is not. That's what I get for putting fabrics together in a poorly lit room. Obviously I decided to keep it. It does pick up some of the button colors and a few of the quilt fabrics have white in them ... not too many though because I made a conscious effort to not use white. I think it works with the scrappiness of the fabrics, the random sizes of the triangles, and the off-centeredness of the buttons.

The backing fabric is a thrifted Pottery Barn kids sheet.

In the end, while the quilt presented a few roadblocks and interesting moments I'm happy with it and I'm already planning another, similar one. So that's that ... my interpretation of this quilt, exactly the way I planned it from the get-go. :)

edited to add: The quilt measures about 46" by 46", the squares started at 5" each, and the border was cut to 3". While the quilt is smaller I think it's more appropriate as a toddler bed quilt, lap quilt or wall hanging as the buttons could come loose. The binding is Dick and Jane words cut at a slight angle (I was almost out of the fabric or the angle would have been more pronounced.

button quilt detail, border, and binding

Sew Sew Much More Quilts


You Might Also Like

7 Comment

  1. I love this quilt! And I love the way you just "went with the flow"!

    Teri in CO

    ReplyDelete
  2. This quilt is beautiful! I think it would be fun to make two at a time. One with colored corners, the other with white corners and colored centers (stack-n-whack type deal)!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I saw this on flickr. I love the button tufting, but so far my attempt has turned out horribly. Perhaps you want to do a tutorial?

    ReplyDelete
  4. It is beautiful. The buttons are great. I love the way this design uses up scraps.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well, *I* love it!

    But then, you have yet to create something that I don't.

    Maybe you should work on that.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love the quilt. I am now regretting all the tiny pieces that I haven't kept to turn in to one of these.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank You for the pretty quilt and great idea. I always save my scraps and now you gave me a use for them. I love collecting buttons to so this isgreat.

    ReplyDelete