Saturday, September 02, 2006

Turning straw into gold

There's nothing I enjoy more than setting myself an impossible task. I'm only sorry the job at the Augean stables was already taken. However, next best thing is sorting the contents of a million button boxes into colour order.

Don't get me wrong. I'm more than grateful for the generous donations of buttons I've received over the years. I've prised many a box from an old lady's shakey grasp before she's had a chance to change her mind. In a morass they can be fairly uninspiring but once you can see just how many tints and tones and designs you actually have, your turn into the Howard Hughes of fastening devices.

The whole point of this ridiculous exercise is to give them away again, to resdistribute my wealth of buttons via craft workshops. But then your eye is caught by the glittery ones, the faceted ones, the giant ones, the asymmetrical ones and you know that from these, you can never be parted.

For anyone else out these who, like me, who is easily pleased but has a long felt need to know how to launder their buttons (there is an element old old lady smell involved here), tie the waterproof ones securely in a vegetable net and bung them in the dishwasher. Oh, and my lawyer says I won't be held responsible for any drain clogging oveflow disasters.

Button up warm now.

2 comments:

Stitching with Schnauzer and Siamese said...

Are those jogurt pots or Pot Noodle? You eat a lot of them!!
There is something immensely satisfying about sorting buttons, do you find yourself trying to match them up? My grandmother used to save ALL buttons. I could start a shirt factory with buttons from mens shirts.She had this nifty idea of putting a thread through all the buttons off each garment to keep them together. They are still like that, waiting to come in handy!

Maggie H.

Unknown said...

I bought buttons two days ago!
i put some into a jam jar (yes a clean jar) and added hot water and dish washing liquid soap. Shook it up, let them sit a while.

Rinse out the water several times (be careful about having the drain covered). Then repeat.

I changed the water many times and let them soak in their sudsy bath over night. The smell is gone. Buttons shiny & nice.