As mentioned in my last post about Giant Knickers, I still had to finish off the buttonholes of this garment... I put this off NOT because it was a boring job or that it'd take such a long time, BUT because I knew it is pretty compulsive for me, and if I started, I likely wouldn't be able to put it down - until my hands really hurt, or they were all completed!
So I just wanted to share here; each buttonhole - and what a joy it is to work around a wee cut in a fabric, some of them less neat, and bring the cut back to clarity, as it were.
I've been 'doing' buttonholes for a long time, but my recent return to needlework got me on a whole new vibe with them: helping friends and neighbours out with occasional paid sewing jobs, I wanted to put that little bit extra effort into the work...
I often reinforced buttonholes, because on bought garments they often unravel or become weakened over time, through use. A loose buttonhole can affect a garment hugely! I often adjust my own buttonholes, on new or on well-worn items, because I am extremely sensitive to things fitting nicely! If a button keeps coming undone, it gets me really aggitated! If I have my sewing kit in my handbag, if I'm out and about, I'll get to it immediately. It is deeply satisfying to me, to have a previously-loose button then fit beautifully.
A good buttonhole - the right torque, or the angle and tension of sliding in of the button - can make a garment which is already a favourite... THE favourite. Buttons are magical, but without a right, accompanying hole, they are useless!
Especially in the most domestic setting, working so intimately, whilst also being in an intimate bed setting, seems to connect me - via hands and heart - with all the folks who used to work from home doing similar work.
All the needleworkers in particular: across the planet, in different climates and seasons, through the ages and even right now alongside me - dipping and pulling the needle and thread, in and out and in and out and in and out... Breathing deeply, stretching occasionally a leg or arm, or shaking the hands and wrists... Feeling their work profoundly, and taking such care and attention to every single stitch.
The power and energy sewn into a garment which is hand-finished like this at home - is incomparible, in respect to a machine-made garment in a factory, where the folks in servitude to a corporation are paid a pittance.
