Today I was sewing mask ear savers for nurse friends who wear masks in this era of the Covid-19 virus. A friend donated a bag of buttons to me to use. I dumped the bag and started sorting. It rushed me back to my childhood.
My mother and grandmother both made their own clothes, and over the years I had pajamas, suits, Easter dresses, and even my prom and wedding dress sewn by my mother. Buttons in boxes and jars were all over the my grandmother’s house. She had a tin box filled with old buttons from the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and they made a delightful noise when the box was shaken. When I visited, I dumped them out on the kitchen table and sorted, stacked, and made button necklaces with thread. Hours and hours of fun because her buttons were strange. They were glass, crystal, jeweled, metal, painted, plastic, wood, and some were just huge. I would ask her often what each one was from. Most of the time, she answered exactly what she cut it off of or if it was from customer alterations, or gifted. She used to starch shirts and do alterations for money as well as making clothes. Sometimes people just gave her buttons if they had them lying around since she did alterations and replaced buttons for people on coats and shirts.
I sat at the table, or on her wood floor, separating buttons by color, size, or category in my head. They were not just connectors for clothes, they were a living thing to me. They told me a story. Fancy dress buttons were worn by ladies going to a ball and dressed in satin, lace, and button up gloves. The gentleman behind the brass button in the box lost the button from his jacket when he was getting up to pull a chair out for the lady. My imagination always led me to connect things with people who held them once.
Now as I sit and sort, I smile at the memories of a seven year old self on the floor with a pile of unwanted buttons.
sherrystruthtofiction 