Stash Saturday

MY STASH IS HUGE!!! Not just fabric, but embellishments of every sort. I literally have shoe boxes, pizza boxes and open shelves stacked clear to the ceiling! I do NOT waste space in my sewing room. My fabric is sorted by colors and fabric types. I have my Bali batiks separate, also my nature realists fabrics, my undersea prints, and my "Objects" stash. The objects fabric stash is a collection of fabric that I use for fussy cutting. If I need a crocodile, I have fabric to cut that from, baseball, got it, pink flamingos, monopoly money, painted car flames, birds, butterflies, feathers, and snake skin prints. I even have some Elvis/blue suede shoe fabric. It is the real fun stack of fabrics. Sunflowers, cows, dice, fish, etc... Also I have boxes of beads, buttons, trim, silk flowers, rhinestones, needle felting fibers, wire, ribbon roses. It is all labeled, but not always handy to get at.

I have a selection of vintage buttons, not as many as a serious collector, but LOTS of buttons to go through. The first pic is some brass buttons, I found in my Mom's button jar. She does not have just a mason jar, she has a five gallon glass pig!! She filled it up on trips to the flea market in California, 30 years ago. When my Mom was moving to Seattle, a friend who is in the button society, came to visit, we dumped all Mom's buttons onto cookie trays on the dinning room table, and went through them one by one. Suzie did not believe me when I told her how many there were. We each got a huge pile of buttons, Suzie got some very special ones that she bought from Mom, I got lots of fun stuff, as I am not a collector, just an embellisher. We had a ton of fun, and Mom reminisced about some of her or Gramma's dresses that some of the buttons came from. The vintage Rhinestone buttons came from the PIG and my sister's finds on E-bay. She had wanted me to decorate a jean jacket with them for her. I finally used some on her jacket and got it back to her. I also have a separate stash of Mother of Pearl buttons. Some donated to me, there are some newer plastic ones, but most are made from real shell. I have decorated Christmas ornaments with them in the past. Using a glue gun, I put MOP buttons all over a silver or white ornament, and a big button on top, put the hanging wire back in, and add a wire ribbon bow at the top. They make great presents to your sewing buddies. I have the MOP buttons in a replica Singer tin, with 3 drawers and little brass window frames for the name tags on each drawer.

Well I hope you enjoyed the visit with some of my buttons. Check back next week to see what else is in my stash.

Suzie C. Demos Buttons

We had Suzie C. at our Fyber Cafe meeting on Tuesday, she is an avid button collector, and a member of Oregon and National Button Societies. She had lots of trays of buttons to show us, and a presentation on celluloid buttons, from the 1880-1940's. We all had lots of fun, and were awed but the variety of buttons she had for display.

Sepia Garden Book, part II

I have been embellishing my photo pages, with everything from beads and buttons to charms, feathers, metal washers and a penny, paint, silk flowers, cardboard cutouts, embroidery, even a rubber pig!! It has been an adventure just collecting things, Joann's fabric was having and end of season button clearence, 80% off, Michaels Crafts was having a sale too, I went to a local auction and a lady bought a box of junk jewelery and we shared it, I got all sorts of weird stuff, chains and charms, a kitten button and I gave her $1 When I have been stumped on what to add, I have gone to my vintage button collection from my mom. A friend Suzie from quilt guild came over and we went through Mom's button jar, Suzie is a serious button collector, she just went to a West coast button convention, she found a small stash of interesting buttons from Mom, and I got all the fun ones she didn't want, but she lectured me on all the different types and what era they are from. I came home with a big zip lock bag of them. Mom's jar is not just any quart jar of buttons, it is a five gallon glass pig jar, full of buttons, that she picked up at fleamarkets and such in the 70's. we had lots of fun going through them, we poured them out onto cookie sheets and picked through them for hours. Suzie didn't believe me when I said five gallons!! I'll get some photos of the pages next time I am online.