[caption id="attachment_621" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="Grandmother's Buttons Lady Washington pearls necklace"]
[/caption]Since 1985, we've created jewelry with late 19th century clothing buttons as well as vintage glass from the early 20th century. Recent enthusiasm for repurposing in fashion has inspired us to incorporate two new kinds of buttons: fabric buttons covered with “upcycled” silk from vintage neckties, and freshwater pearl buttons from the old stock of the Lady Washington Pearl company.
“We’ve long wanted to bring vintage textiles into our jewelry,” explains our owner/designer Susan Davis. “As I read dozens of blogs dedicated to recycling clothes last spring, it occurred to me that vintage silk neckties, with their vibrant colors and classic designs, would be the perfect place to begin. And of course, what better to do with them than to make covered buttons?”
We're able to create about 20 buttons from each necktie, so the colors and patterns of silk will vary slightly from piece to piece. “We plan on staying in the same color families,” explains Davis. “Burgundies and blues, yellows and golds, and various shades of green will be in each piece.”
Also last spring, Davis was able to buy the remaining stock of the American Pearl Button Company of Washington, Iowa from the grandson of the owner. American Pearl created beautiful buttons from Mississippi River mussel shells from 1906 to 1964, marketing them around the country under the brand Lady Washington Pearls.
“Almost every sewing basket in America contained cards of Lady Washington Pearls during those years,” Davis claims. “It’s hard to understand today how many steps went into the creation of these buttons: clam shells were harvested from the river banks with hand held tongs, the shells were boiled and cleaned, round blanks were drilled, the blanks were sanded to a uniform thickness, they were tumbled to smoothness, operators carved designs in them using handheld wheels, they were bleached and polished and, upon occasion, dyed brilliant colors. Then they still had to be hand-sewn onto cards for shipping and marketing.” The quality of these pearl buttons far exceeds those being made overseas today. Both the silk tie buttons and vintage pearls add to the colorful, eclectic mix that defines Grandmother’s Buttons new 2011-12 line. The company was founded 26 years ago on the principal of reusing and celebrating what's beautiful from the past. We're happy that over the decades more shoppers and jewelry buyers have come to share the aesthetic of repurposing and reuse.
[...] more Grandma news here: Grandmother's Buttons Jewelry » Blog Archive » Upcycling Silk Ties … This entry was posted in blog, fashion, Feeds, fun, grand, jewelry, posts, twitter and tagged [...]
ReplyDeleteButtons
ReplyDeleteCollecting buttons has been one of the most popular hobbies of all times. Buttons can be used for a variety of purposes, right from holding a coat secure, to card-making and appliqué-work. But most importantly buttons add a touch of beauty and colour to life. Buttons are one of those little joys that create life delightful.
Some museums and art galleries hold culturally, historically, politically, and/or artistically significant buttons in their collections.
The Victoria & Albert Museum has many buttons, particularly
in its jewellery collection, as does the Smithsonian Institution.
Hammond Turner & Sons, a button-making company in Birmingham, hosts an online museum with an image gallery and historical button-related articles, including an 1852 article on button-making by Charles Dickens. In the USA, large button collect are on public display at The Waterbury Button Museum of Waterbury, Connecticut, and the Keep Homestead Museum of Monson, Massachusetts, which also hosts an extensive online button archive.
Early button history
Buttons and button-like objects used as ornaments or seals rather than fasteners have been discovered in the Indus Valley Civilization during its Kot Diji phase (circa 2800-2600 BCE) as well as Bronze Age sites in China (circa 2000-1500 BCE), and Ancient Rome.
Buttons made from seashell were used in the Indus Valley Civilization for ornamental purposes by 2000 BCE. Some buttons were carved into geometric shapes and had holes pierced into them so that they could be attached to clothing with thread. Ian McNeil (1990) holds that: "The button, in fact, was originally used more as an ornament than as a fastening, the earliest known being found at Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley. It is made of a curved shell and about 5000 years old."
Functional buttons with buttonholes for fastening or closing clothes appeared first in Germany in the 13th century. They soon became widespread with the rise of snug-fitting garments in 13th- and 14th-century Europe.
Clothing Buttons.
Lady Washington Buttons were made by The American Pearl Button Company in Washington, Iowa. Does anyone know if the cards that the buttons were sewn onto might possibly have been made by the Curran Company that printed bridge score cards, greeting cards, etc. and was also in Washington, Iowa about the same time (early 1940's) ?
ReplyDelete