Need buttons

I inherited a pretty big stash of buttons. Sometimes, when I go looking, I'm delighted to find just the right button in there. This is most likely to happen if I only need a single. For the baby sweater, I need 4. Hmmmm. There are 4 buttons that are pretty much the right colour, but they're too big. Do I have to make the trip to town for 4 silly buttons, I wonder. Well, not when I have a whole boatload of polymer clay on hand! I spent a couple of hours mixing just the right colours (because you can do that with polymer clay). Then I made some bull's eye canes.

I left them to firm up overnight, and then put them in the fridge so they'd slice easily.

I sliced the canes into 3/8 in. slices, and pressed them lightly between 2 pieces of parchment paper with slight pressure from my thumb. This rounded the edges off nicely and made them very button-y.

You can see the 2 bamboo skewers (taped together) that I used to start the holes. They're easy to position when they're taped together. I ended up with 8 buttons that would be perfect for my sweater, and 3 that are slightly larger. Those will be for a future project, since I still have lots of the same willow green yarn.

I even got daring and rolled out a square-ish cane. That one produced some really interesting buttons that are about 5/8 inches in diameter.

I doubt I'll ever buy buttons again. Why would you when you have custom-made buttons at the end of the hall?