arg

I did get out the embroidery materials this weekend. The plan was simple - turn this blouse I got on sale last fall into something a little more interesting. I wanted to do some covered buttons with a little embroidery on them like these little beauties from Craftlog.

If you look at the post on craftlog, she says it was hard to make the circles perfect and then center them on the blanks. She was right. (Though a little trick I learned - spraying the back of the fabric with basting spray - helps greatly.) I wound up making the embroidered circles too small at first, but didn't see that until they were all put together. That meant to alter the scale of them I had to embroider the outer ring when they were finished. Not so easy. Still, I was happy with the results. Pretty cute, huh?

You might notice that I took that picture without the placket of the blouse closed. There's a good reason for that. The freaking buttons are too big for the buttonholes! Gah. I chose covered button blanks that were the same diameter as the originals on the blouse, but didn't take into account that the covered buttons are much thicker than the generic ones. Much as I tried, there is NO WAY they are going through the buttonholes. So, back to the start with smaller buttons. Or perhaps I'll just look through my button jars for something I don't have to make...

Perhaps if I'd used this little find I wouldn't be in this mess. It's not just a button measure, it's been officially adopted by the National Button Society. Found it this weekend at a local antique shop along with some great vintage fabric and the button pictured. (That one won't fit through those buttonholes either.)

Tomorrow I'll post the project that did work.