Dorset Buttons

As predicted, work has been very busy lately, and I have been tired! I also got a huge knot in my shoulder and was so stiff that I couldn't stitch for about five days. But I do have a little project to show you.

In September, I finally joined my local branch of the Embroiderers' Guild of America (EGA). I had attended an open stitch in early March of 2020 (which is where I discovered Japanese embroidery for the first time), but a week later, everything shut down for COVID, so I had to put joining the EGA on hold until now.

At my second meeting in October, I learned how to make Dorset buttons, and they elected me treasurer. 😂 (It's a small branch, and I think they were desperate.)

Dorset buttons are buttons made with cabone rings, embroidery thread, and #24 tapestry needles. They originated in Dorset, England, hence the name. Here is the Dorset button I made that night:

I'm not crazy about the colors, and my wraps bunched up a little near the ring, but it was fun to do, so I decided to try making a fancier one. I started by doing buttonhole wraps around my plastic cabone ring:

It's important that these wraps be really close together so they fully cover the ring. I had to keep pushing them together until I couldn't fit anymore. You also have to connect the last wrap to the first one with a little stitch. Since it's easier to do the button with one long length of floss, I started with about three yards of three strands of DMC floss. It's tricky to work with at first but gets easier as you use up some of the yardage.

The next step is to gently turn the wraps, so the ridge is on the inside of the ring:

This will give you a smooth edge on the outside of the button. Then you wrap the ring to make little spokes:

I added tiny beads to mine, which made them look more spoke-like right away. But they typically look more like a star at first. You have to do little cross-stitches in the center to gather them:

From there, you start wrapping the spokes. I did a woven wheel wrap on this one, which is done the same way as in surface embroidery:

Once all the wraps are done, you just hide the thread on the underside like you do in regular embroidery. I was pretty pleased with this one. I think it turned out really pretty.

Inspired by my success, I made a bunch more in various sizes, with varying numbers of spokes and different types of wraps:

Aren't they cute? They're such a fun little craft to do when you have some time to kill, and they're easily transportable, which is nice.

They're also not terribly hard to do. I have an 11-year-old niece, Sophie, and a couple Saturdays ago, I taught her how to make these. She picked it up pretty quickly and made a few into a little scissor fob:

She did such a great job! She was so enthusiastic about them that she taught her mom, Becky, who made a couple into earrings:

I love them! I think they both did such a beautiful job, and they made them into useful things so cleverly. I was so impressed that I've made them promise to teach me how to turn mine into jewelry and fobs. But that is for another post.