Buttons

My mother collected buttons. Or more accurately, she SAVED buttons. There was no room in our lean budget for collecting. Mother was a seamstress/tailor. I don't think she ever threw away a garment without cutting the buttons off.

I now have her button jar. I like to look at it often to remind me of her and her skill and desire to save small bits of money--after all, buttons could be used over and over until the eyes broke. I see buttons from dresses I wore when I was 6-10 years old and skinny with a high forehead. I try to remember age 7. I try to remember skinny. It is fun to picture those times.

Have you ever thought how much the button is a part of our language? "Button your lip," "button up your overcoat," "right on the button, "bursting your buttons,"
"buttonholing" a person, "you've lost your buttons."

The earliest known buttons date from 2000 B. C. They really came into their own in those medieval dresses with buttons up and down the sleeves.

The Amish consider buttons too ornamental and fasten with hooks and eyes. According to some button historians, Napolean is responsible for instituting metal buttons on military coat sleeves. He hoped to break his soldiers of wiping their noses on their sleeves.

I don't have any really valuable buttons--some people have been know to pay thousands for just the right button. I just enjoy looking at them and wondering what garment they came from. Perhaps some stories could come from that.

So, button up your overcoat--it's cold out there.