Buttons and Bags

I have been gathering a number of buttons lately on two separate thrifting expeditions. At my first stop I managed to obtain a bag of old and rather plain buttons with some wonderful colourful sets thrown in. I think they make lovely button flowers. The second stop was at the thrift store right next to the grocery store - a very tempting location. There I found two bags that had numerous larger vintage buttons. Score! Here is a shot of most of them, together with three pink buttons already in my collection.










I also have been arranging my half of the study so it is more amenable to crafting and sewing (instead of studying and computer, which I seem to be doing at the dining table lately). I had this little storage shelf - a freebee from Canadian Tire I think - and it makes a perfect button storage and organization centre! I love to organize by colour (you should see my closet) and I have managed to separate all of my buttons into colour categories for each drawer. This system will keep my button collection manageable as the little drawers can only hold so many buttons. I have put one of my thrifted pottery sugar bowls on top (the one that stores my stitch markers) as well as a beautiful card set in a tin that I purchased at a Goth/renaissance/fantasy clothing store in Ottawa (called Trivium). What a store! I really wanted one of the outfits but had to settle for the cards. Sorry for the blurry picture.

My knitting has been, well, scattered and slow in the last few months so I decided last week to start something quick. I had 3 balls of Karisma Ull-Tweed in my stash (use what you have!) so I started the Counterpane Accessories Pouch from Melanie Falick's Handknit Holidays book. My gauge is a bit smaller than the pattern calls for so I did three repeats for one side and then started the other side. I have already finished the three repeats for the second side and think I would like a larger purse (I'm not much of a tiny purse person) so I intend to do five repeats per side and then find a nice set of bamboo or wooden handles to top it off as well as some fabric to line it with.

I had a bit of a problem with the scallop pattern and, after not finding that anyone else on the internet who had any problems, just worked it out on my own. It seemed that one side of Row 4 was missing a yarn over so I added one in to balance the row and adjusted the rest of the pattern because this added an extra stitch to the end of the row. It looks great now and has similar yarn overs on each side!