button, button, who's got...
Oct. 25th, 2009 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrian_turtleA few weeks ago, I found a long wool overcoat at a secondhand store. There are times I don't want to wear my parka with an interview suit or a fancy dress. (Though of course when it's pouring down sleet, I have more important concerns than appearance.) The price was quite low, presumably because the pockets were torn and half the buttons were missing. I thought that even *I* could replace buttons. The pocket fixes were even easy, just a matter of repairing seams in the lining.
All was well until I finally got around to the button replacement project. With 2 remaining buttons and 3 empty buttonholes, I didn't expect to find a matching button. The spare buttons in my sewing box are singletons, and mostly pretty small. I planned to remove the 2 existing buttons, and put on 5 new matching buttons. I was surprised that the local fabric store didn't have what I was looking for--dark green buttons of 1" diameter. I'd thought that kind of flat plastic buttons were almost a commodity, like thread. I could have bought black buttons in the right shape, in 0.875" or 1.125", but I think that would be asking for trouble. I could also have bought shiny brass buttons with shanks, but I'd prefer to get something that doesn't stand out so much. (Maybe flat buttons that looked like bronze would be nice, but that's about as far as I'd like to go in that direction.) Should I be looking at a big fabric store? A specialty button store? Online?
All was well until I finally got around to the button replacement project. With 2 remaining buttons and 3 empty buttonholes, I didn't expect to find a matching button. The spare buttons in my sewing box are singletons, and mostly pretty small. I planned to remove the 2 existing buttons, and put on 5 new matching buttons. I was surprised that the local fabric store didn't have what I was looking for--dark green buttons of 1" diameter. I'd thought that kind of flat plastic buttons were almost a commodity, like thread. I could have bought black buttons in the right shape, in 0.875" or 1.125", but I think that would be asking for trouble. I could also have bought shiny brass buttons with shanks, but I'd prefer to get something that doesn't stand out so much. (Maybe flat buttons that looked like bronze would be nice, but that's about as far as I'd like to go in that direction.) Should I be looking at a big fabric store? A specialty button store? Online?
