Buying buttons - sizes, shapes, shanks, security, alternatives, post 344

 Buying Buttons

You can buy sets of same colour upholstery buttons. All the same colour. 

Fastening

Make sure to check the back. Some have attached spikes. Others have indented or tunneled backs.

Two or Four Holes

I am an amateur sewer and untidy. I don't like having to be sure to get the right colour cotton for all the buttons, matching the fabric. I prefer a button with a shank at the back. 


Black buttons, small and large, with two holes, four holes, and domed with a shank. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

You might feel that four holes means the button is more secure. Less included to swivel so that one two-hole button has a pair of holes vertical and the next beside it has the holes horizontal. 

I keep my small buttons in a small button box. I bought this in a UK shop.



Sets

These listings can be confusing. Some of them say sets of ten. Then they say each. Each button or each set of ten? See what is listed when you start to place the order. Others are sold by weight.

You can also buy sets of smaller buttons. You might want a bag all the same colour if you wear a lot of one colour, such as red, or buy two or three sets, such as one of black, one of white, one of purple. Or three, one of red, one of white, one of blue or green for summer. 

Why Buy Buttons?

They are sold for crafts. You can use them for covering a button box or button bag, all over a tee-shirt, all over a tote bag, as protectors for the underside of a bag when you put it down on a train.

If you are buying for decoration, the more unusual the shape the better. Unless you want to create patterns, lines, circles.

If the buttons are purely decorative, you don't need buttonholes. Or you can embroider two sets of parallel lines and end without cutting through the middle.\

Another solution is to make a thin ribbon loop.

Or buy Chinese knot fastening, made from cord, usually black, which come as a pair.

Frogs.


Buttons For Buttonholes

If you are buying to go through a buttonhole, the best shapes are round (circular) buttons, flat so you can grip them, of a suitable size, to go through the buttonhole. I had a set of fancy buttons, which were a total nuisance. The points which stuck out would catch on the fabric around the buttonhole. Half the button would go through, and the other half would get stuck. You had to wiggle the button around to get it to do up and to undo it.

If you have unlimited time, you can embroider a button.



Found on ebay


Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Thread-covered_buttons

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