Greta the Second

Soon to be traveling to a nephew in Virginia! This project was part of the Use It or Lose It challenge on the Stash and Burn boards on Ravelry. The challenge: knit with old stash yarn, and commit to knitting 13 projects in 2013. If you can't knit the yarn, then it is time to find a new home for it.

My Artyarns Ultramerino came into my stash when I spent a few days in Burbank, California with a group of knitters and crocheters.  It may have been 2004? 2005? Regardless, old stash!

Pattern: Greta the Captivating Cat by Rebecca Danger

Yarn: Artyarns Supermerino 1.25 skeins, in color 113, brown.

Needles: US 5

Notions: two vintage buttons and a little bit of DMC embroidery floss, polyfill.

I knit the body on the way up to the cabin, knit the arms, tail and ears while at the cabin, and sewed on her face and put her together once I was home again.

Inspector 13 approved

Vintage Buttons 1

I have decided to start documenting some of the lovely buttons in my enormous button collection.  Purchased through estate sales, ebay, thrift store and antique mall ramblings, I can't turn down an interesting button.

My sister also looks for buttons for me, and since she is a die-hard estate-saler, she can find some real treasures.  I love seeing button collections in their natural state - glass jars, cookie tins, shoe boxes.  The buttons are often accompanied by old belt buckles, snaps, and for some reason, masonic pins.  Maybe I will have to take a picture of them at some point!

The "woven" brass buttons are really beautiful, with delicate details.  If you look closely you can see fine lines where one rectangle crosses over or under another.  I have six of them, so I hope they will be used together.

The once-clear plastic button (now aged to an IPA color) brings Pennsylvania Dutch hex signs to mind.  It is a singleton, and may end up as a decoration on an accessory rather than an actual closure for something.

Do you have a button collection, or do you remember playing with a button collection when you were a child?