buttons

My mother did a lot of sewing throughout her lifetime. Being talented and thrifty, she made the things we could not afford with a family of seven. These included shirts, skirts, dresses, curtains, table clothes, dress up clothes, pajamas, vests, (I’m sure culottes) and school uniforms. All were sewn with love on her old, electric, Singer, sewing machine. I can still remember how it smelled. With five children we also kept her very busy with mending.

I loved looking through her tidy, sewing drawers and looking at the mysterious tools, feeling the different textures of the fabrics, and looking at the colorful bobbins. My favorite was the button tin. Inside were hundreds of colorful buttons layered on top of one another. All shapes and sizes with various colors sat waiting. There were big, sturdy buttons that I imagined an Eskimo would wear. Wooden ones I assumed an Indian in Ecuador had carved. One ‘real gold’ button that once adorned Queen Lucy in Narnia. And tiny, pearly, pastel ones that sat neatly on a slip of paper. I will never forget the maroon one that was shaped like a mitten, the big, round, shiny one that looked like the shell of a beetle and the small white ones covered with the tiniest flowers. There were the typical nondescript ones, but I didn’t care. They all felt good pouring through my little fingers. And when I organized them by color or size, they all had their place. I don’t know how many hours I spent playing with the buttons but, I know they made an impression on me.

I now have my own button collection that my boys have discovered recently. I smile to myself as they sift through them, organize them, and as I overhear them speculate on which king wore the gold one long ago.