Beaded Buttons

This gaggle of embellished buttons came into being when someone in the local sewing guild showed me how to make cloth buttons by gathering a circle of cloth over a plastic curtain ring. I immediately realized that with a little batting interspersed between the cloth and the curtain ring, I would have a SOFT CLOTH BUTTON, much easier to bead upon than covering one of those metal button forms the fabric stores sell. This collection represents a wild attempt to demonstrate lots of variations at once.

Button 1 is decorated with an enameled Kabuki mask (originally a stick pin; I snipped off the metal pin and glued it to the fabric before framing it with beads).

Button 2 has raised layers of peyote ruffles, tall at the center and diminishing towards the outside, giving it the look of a slightly demented rose.

Button 3 uses a flat rectangular "Chiclet" glass bead with tiny flower murrini embedded in the transparent glass.

Button 4 is an example of the Feather Stitch Mandala in Embeadery, worked over a coordinating silk base.

Button 5 doesn't look like much in the picture, but it's glorious in life: hand-dyed and pleated silk habotai with iridescent rose montees glittering inside the tiny silk wrinkles, and a border of dichroic seed beads.

I don't remember the others well enough to describe them in detail right now; maybe some day I'll get them out of the box and go through the rest of them.

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