Making More: Button Brooches

Here are some of the samples from the second round of workshops, on button brooches. Again inspired by the make do and mend jewellery from the 1940's. Instead of plastic wire I ended up designing versions with leather, as the colours and textures were more in keeping with the quality of the ones I had seen from the 40's. The modern plastics I had made experiments with were too bright and squeaky. The buttons I selected were made in the 1940's. I like the idea of giving an old object a new incarnation and purpose.

You can see that we used the same binding technique as the woollen versions from the taster day...but the leather is a little harder to perfect, it is less forgiving than the wool. Hence why we practised in the wool first, building up the skills as the workshops progress.

And here is one of the 1940's brooches. A very sweet bambi button.