Button Brooch

It's done. Finished....yeah!!! One goal completed. The RSN "Scabiosa" Button class (taught by Jenny Adin-Christie) I took at their Williamsburg classroom is completed. Here are the steps:

After very carefully cleaning the piece and drying it for several days I cut away the linen and backing from around the button (the fabric that held the embroidery in the hoop). You can see the sheer fabric in this photo that was left. Then the instructions said to sand the acid-free cardboard disk to bevel the edge. I next applied a cotton pad to the disk (again carefully trimmed) with supplied archival glue.

Here the piece is pinned to a tan linen backing, centered, and I started stitching a gathering (running) stitch around the button with the supplied Nymo thread. The running stitch was positioned about 10cm from the ladder stitch edge to allow for turning over the cardboard.

The the gathering stitch was pulled up and over the edge of the padded cardboard with the design centered on the front side. The padding is against the wrong side of the embroidery. After gathering it up, the lacing was begun with the Nymo thread. Lacing is done going back and forth around the circle, say, from 12:00 to 6:00, then 1:00 to 7:00, and so forth, circling around the disk until it's perfectly tensioned around the circle. The last step was to sew a brooch pin to a pre-cut piece of wool felt I had on hand, and then glue and slip stitch that to the back of the Scabiosa button.

Here's the finished project!!! I'm so pleased with the results. I learned a great deal from Jenny's wonderful classroom instruction and fantastic written instructions.