buttons

Don't you love it when everything just comes together? I was thinking about how I could sort out my button collection that lives in a jumble in a shoe box. I seem to spend ages looking for the right buttons to finish a cardigan. Usually I find three of the 'perfect' button when I need five. I decided it would save me so much time if I were an organised person and I had them sorted into sets on cards or in little zipper bags. And while procrastinating over this enormous task I found an old (1985) gardening book, The A-Z of gardening in New Zealand, in a local book exchange. The book is full of lovely, slightly faded photographs that I thought I could use to make cards to sew my buttons onto. So I cut out some of my favourite photos, glued them onto card and stitched on the buttons using a strong top-stitching thread. I think cards like this would make a nice gift for a sewing or knitting friend.

I've been slowly working my way through my button collection. I seem to have quite a few one-offs (that's just a selection on the plate, above) and I've decided to keep the loveliest anyway as they are so ... well, lovely. So much joy in such little, everyday things.

Have a lovely weekend.

The top photo, by the way, is of Oakura beach, south of New Plymouth, taken a couple of years ago. I have it as my computer desktop so I see it almost every day. I love to see the sea.

Reading: A long way from Verona (1971) by Jane Gardam. Another of the childhood books. I'd forgotten so much of it that it was like reading it for the first time and I loved it. Another coming of age book - and Jane Gardam's first novel -  with a young (thirteen-year-old) fiesty protagonist, Jessica (aka Jessie Carr) Vye. Again set in England but this time during the second world war - rationing and air raids.