Aunt Norie’s Sewing Room
In today’s fast-paced “hustle and bustle” world we often forget to just be grateful for the “stuff and things” of everyday life. The little boy and his “too tight” buttonholes on his jeans took me back to research I’d done on buttons a few years ago.
I found that buckles and pins came even before buttons. Only since the 13th century have people used buttons as we do today. Before that they had used thorns and sinews for fasteners. Button-like disks and knobs were first used as ornaments (maybe even called buttons) when someone discovered one could push a button through a slot or pull a loop over it to use as fasteners.
It still was two centuries later before button making became a flourishing industry in Germany, France and
England. They were very expensive and never discarded, but used over and over again. Button collecting is a very busy and sometimes an expensive hobby for many today.
Another common sense thing I’ve always done in making children’s clothes is when the pattern has the buttonhole going vertical or straight up and down, I change it and let lay vertical or crosswise just helps the button to stay buttoned. That up-and-down button hole has to be very tight (harder for a child) or it comes un-buttoned too easily.
Well now, all of a sudden it seems, we’re off and running on 2010.
Just be grateful, keep smiling and count your blessings.
Have a very blessed and happy new year.
— Aunt Norie, P.O. Box 265, Tonganoxie 66086, auntnorie@bdc.net.