Sunday 19 January 2014

99 buttons to stitch on a quilt

Sing with me now..
99 buttons to stitch on a quilt
99 buttons to stitch
tack one down and twist thread around
98 buttons to stitch on a quilt

I sure do love my buttons; they are such great embellishments as they add lots of texture and colour to a project. Fortunately my 99 buttons (or more) are all stitched down now, and I thought I could share a little tip about how I temporarily secure my buttons to the foundation while I am working.

Spread your buttons out on your quilt, and move them around until you are happy with the arrangement.

You will need pins with large heads for this, like glass head or flower head pins; otherwise the buttons will slip right off.

Put a pin through one of the holes on each button; be careful not to push it too hard and damage your table. It just needs to go into the quilt.

When they are all pinned down, you need to secure them properly so that you can move the quilt. Create a little fold with your thumb so that you can push the pin back up.

Now your buttons will stay in place while you are stitching them down one by one.

I often leave the thread tails on the front of the quilt so that I tie the knot on top of the buttons:

Slide the button down the pin and hold it in place while you remove the pin. Take a stitch down through the button, into the quilt and back up like this.
This way you can do all the work from the front of the quilt without all that awkward stabbing through the quilt and your poor fingers.
Go back up through the other hole in the button, and tie a double surgeon’s knot. Trim the thread tails and you are done.

Next up: labels.

Thanks for stopping by!

6 comments:

  1. Great tips......thanks! And I'm singing along in my head......have a nice day!!

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  2. Brilliant! I also didn't know the surgeon's knot until now. Thank you!

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  3. I see you've been hand stitching too......I bet you have a better thimble than me though. LOL xox

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  4. Thanks for the tips... Now I finally know what a surgeon's knot looks like. (Pretty buttons!)
    Hugs

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  5. Sometimes I need to be shown the obvious! Like how to keep the buttons in their "arrangement" until they are sewn down. Thanks. I love using buttons as embellishments. I have lots of buttons too.

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  6. Good tip! I love buttons too :)

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