Using Old Treasures...

It seems that textiles, and their accompanying paraphernalia, have always been a part of my life. As a result, I've accumulated a few "collections".  As you can imagine, my wool collection is significant but I have a couple of other collections that I don't write about very often....fabric that's not wool and buttons.
Some of the buttons are antiques and really too valuable to be used but others are just pretties that couldn't possibly be tossed out. And the fabrics, most from my many years of constructing custom soft furnishings, are wonderful and, in this era of cheaply produced Asian fabrics, almost irreplaceable. And really, ask my friends... I've given a lot of it away! But I'm selfish and just can't give up some of it.
Well, recently I decided to add books and patterns from the delightfully creative Maggie Bonanomi to the offerings on my website. And in exploring her latest book, A Day at Sunny Brook, I found the most enchanting use for a jar full of mostly Mother of Pearl buttons...all vintage, a few antique and none terribly valuable. But all just waiting for the opportunity to be useful once again...

Here's a photo of my work-in-progress (And I'll post the completed piece soon, I promise!):

And here are a few of the other buttons: