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Demonstrations>Trims and Embellishment>Buttons
By the time the late 16th and early 17th centuries rolled
around, buttons had evolved to a fairly modern shape. The
construction of buttons in this period was accomplished one
of three ways; casting in metal, construction in metal, and
construction from organic elements. The most common shape
of this time period was a rounded or slightly flattened ball
with a shank.
The evolution of buttons has some bearing on the resultant
buttons from the above noted time period. Several sources,
Dress Accessories; Medieval Finds from Excavations in
London among them, show buttons to have been in common
usage in England and Europe by the early 13th century. The
buttons excavated from the London sites fall into the above
mentioned three construction categories.
 Specifically
found have been cast buttons with integral shanks or embedded
shanks, buttons constructed from various metal elements which
have been stamped or embellished and then soldered together,
and buttons made from cloth and thread. The size of the buttons
from these excavations range between 8 and 15.5 mm diameter
for metal ones and 4 - 6 mm for the round cloth ones.
There is also evidence to suggest that buttons occurred much
earlier, even prior to the 9th century. Specifically, buttons
have been found in Anglo-Saxon burial sites on tunics. In
a site in Ireland, circa 8th century, a metal shank button
with an enameled triskele design was found. In Northern Europe,
cast shanked buttons have been found dating from the 9th and
10th centuries in excavations at Birka, Sweden. These particular
buttons were found attached to men's coats. In Paris, in an
exhibit of textiles found from a 14th century midden on the
Ile de la Cite (the original site of the city of Paris), there
exists a portion of a sleeve approximately eight inches long
which is from a cotehardie. It contains about a dozen buttonholes
worked in buttonhole stitch. No buttons were found but the
existence of button holes and the subsequent wear patterns
would indicate that they were used on the garment.
This demonstration is specifically concerned with the construction
of buttons from textile and other organic elements. The reasons
for this are twofold. First, most people do not have access
to casting equipment but they do have access to thread, cloth
and wooden beads. Second, by constructing the buttons for
a particular piece of clothing out of thread or cloth, the
button can match or contrast in color with the garment. One
additional reason for making your own buttons is that you
can make as many as you need and if you ever lose one, you
can easily replace it. Constructed buttons are also much less
expensive which becomes an issue when doublets of the period
require thirty or more buttons.
During the early 16th century, button makers guilds sprang
up like wildfire, and were often associated with the lace
makers guilds of the area. One source states that, in order
to be accepted into the button makers guild, a prospective
student had to construct a dozen buttons as one of their show
pieces. The first type of button construction shown is the
thread wrapped wood core button. These are fairly typical
of the period and can be found in several sources, Janet Arnold's
Patterns of Fashion being the best.
 To
construct this type of button, you will need a wooden bead
for the core. The bead can be drilled or not; which ever is
easier to find and to work with. Step one involved the placement
of the "spines" for the needleweaving. Cut a fairly
long piece of thread (about 18" for a 12mm wood core
- this looks long but you'll need it later - my student suggests
a length between 24" and 36"). Tie a knot in the
end of your thread and and pass it through the hole in the
bead. Catch the thread just above the knot so that you have
looped the thread around the bead and through the hole. This
becomes your first spine. By going through the hole and wrapping
the thread on the outside of the bead, you can then place
the rest of your spines. Six, eight or more spines were common.
 Once
the spines are in place, you can then start the needleweaving
process. Pass the needle back up through the hole in the bead
until it looks like the illustration above. This denotes the
top of your button. Gently and carefully pass the needle UNDER
the first spine and pull the thread through, being careful
not to let the thread roll into the hole. Pass the needle
under the SAME spine again and pull it through, effectively
wrapping the thread around the spine one time. The illustration
to the right shows this particular step. Move to the next
spine and repeat the process.
 When
you have gone around the bead once, simply continue to wrap
the spines, spiraling down around the bead until all the spines
are wrapped and the wooden bead is covered. There are many
variations of this wrapping process. 50 Heirloom Buttons
to Make and Patterns of Fashion give examples
of a few. You can double the spines, placing two right next
to each other and do an "in and out" wrap before
proceeding on to the next set of spines. This gives the button
surface a smoother, almost corded appearance. If the wood
core is large enough, the spines can be made with soutache
braid or other small braids.
 Once
the entire wood core is covered, your needle is again at the
base of the button. Pass the needle and thread up through
the hole again. At this point, you are ready to put the button
on to the garment. If your thread is shorter than about seven
or eight inches, you will need to lengthen it at some convenient
point in the shanking process. This can be done before attaching
to the garment by cutting the thread and attaching the longer
thread and then hiding the knot inside the hole of the button
or it can be done after the first few shank threads are already
placed in the garment.
 Before
threading the needle back down into the bead hole, be sure
to catch one or more of the spines. Pull the needle through
(you may need pliers at this point if the hole has been filled
up with threads). Pull the needle and thread through the garment
and pull until there is about a quarter to an eighth of an
inch of space between your button and the garment. Pass the
needle back through the garment and again through the bead
hole. Catch one or more spines on the way back down through
the bead hole and into the garment. Depending on how thick
your thread is and how much space your bead hole allows, between
six and eight passes is usually the best for wear.
On the last pass through the bead hole, do not continue on
through the garment. Take the last remaining tail of thread
and wrap it around the shank threads and then pass the needle
through the garment and anchor the thread down. When you are
done, your button should look something like the illustration
above. Often, as an added embellishment, during the last pas
through the hole of the bead, a smaller, more expensive bead
was threaded through and seated on top of the hole of the
button bead. Examples of this can be found in Patterns
of Fashion and Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd.
Whew!!! Now make twenty-nine more of these little guys!
 Another,
easier and much simpler way of making buttons can be accomplished
as follows...
Cut a round disc of fabric. This can be a contrasting fabric,
a matching fabric or the same fabric as your garment. Depending
on how thick the fabric is, you may need to cut two to three
discs per button. Place running stitches around the perimeter
of the disc or discs as seen in the illustration to the left.
The stitches should not be too close or too far away from
the edge. Some experimentation is necessary to get this right,
especially if you are going to be using wood cores or stuffing
the button, as described below.
 After
the running stitches are placed, gently pull the stitches
until you have forced the disc into the shape of a little
cap. At this point you may either insert a wood core, stuff
with stuffing or, if the fabric is thick (as in wool or velvet),
simply leave the button unstuffed. Take some time to arrange
the tiny pleats so that they are all even and will lay evenly.
Laying them all the same direction will help with this.
 If
you are using a wood core or stuffing the button, do not use
too big a wood core or stuff the button too much. Leave a
little bit of room in order to be able to pull the opening
entirely closed and to tuck the edges of the disc up into
the opening prior to closing it. If you are using thick fabric,
the edges will function as stuffing, especially if you have
cut the discs a bit larger and placed the running stitches
further away from the edge. After you've tucked and fussed,
your button should look something like the illustration to
the left.
 Alternatively,
if you are having trouble getting those edges into the interior
of the cap and keeping them nice, my student suggests the
following method. Place the first row of running stitches
as described but place them fairly close to the edge. Pull
the disc into a shallow cap and flatten the disc so that it
looks like the illustration to the right. At this point, place
another row of running stitches to the outside of the first
row, right along the folded edge. This has the benefit of
forcing the edge to stay in place while you pull the opening
closed.
Which ever method you choose, once you've gotten the fabric
formed into a ball, you are now ready to shank the button
to your garment. If you've used unfulled wool to make your
buttons, you can take the button balls and full them in hot
water prior to attaching them to the garment. This fulling
step makes wool button balls tighten up into hard little buttons.
 To
shank the button ball to the garment, first pass the needle
through the garment and pull until the button is about a quarter
to an eighth of an inch away from the garment surface (sound
familiar?). Pass the needle back up through the garment and
catch a couple of the tiny pleats before passing back through
the garment. Do this a number of times until the button is
fully anchored. Wrap the shank as with the needle woven button
above and anchor the thread.
This type of covered button went on to become a standard
in the 17th and 18th centuries. Often, in later periods, the
cores for these buttons were broad, flat discs of wood or
other hard material. Some buttons have been found with heavy
cardboard discs.
Happy button making!!!
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Basket woven example |
Needle looped example |
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"Over-under" example |
Tabby woven example |
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