Wonderful Wool.

The clocks were turned back in the UK last weekend and the nights are drawing in - that's an old fashioned phrase! But old fashion is on my mind this week. 

I'm still hooked on textiles. Maybe it's the texture- they look so warm and cosy. Maybe the colours - such an array, from natural neutrals to bright primaries. Anyhow, in the search for something new to show you this week, I came across these Dorset Buttons.

Who knew? These buttons started their life in this country in 1622 (very precise!) and ceased hand production in the 1850's when machines began to take over. Made in Dorset, in the very south of England, they were a cottage industry that often the whole family took part in - mum, kids, and dad when he got home from the fields in the evening. The first ones used products of local sheep farming - rams horn for the circular frame and either wool or cloth scraps for the winding. Sold or traded, they were valuable items, for the clothes of the well-to-do.

I love the wheel pattern - they speak of cart wheels and spinning wheels. Pre-industrialisation.

The first pair in these fabulous neutrals I attached with a curled over piece of copper sheet and a ball end headpin - both made by Lucy Haslam, as are the earwires. The
stoneware spikes are from Petra Carpreau.

A second pair has darker neutrals, and ceramic connectors, again from Petra Carpreau, with little moving wheels, just like an old loom. Dark satanic mills, indeed.

 

 

 

Then I went for some serious colour! On the blue and yellow, more Petra spikes, dumortierite and Lucy's chartreuse earwires. On the blue and pink - Patricia Ritchie lampwork and sari silk, with copper rings and wine earwires (again, Lucy).  

 

 

 

The buttons? Still hand made, but in the Midlothian area of Scotland from local wool, hand spun and dyed by Gilleon Finley-Coull. Since early 2017 the buttons have been protected as a Heritage Craft.  

                                                              See you in two weeks

                                                                      Lindsay x

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