We have a small selection of buttons here at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop, a curated couple of shelves in the front room by the window filled with clear plastic tubes, a sample button affixed to each top.

Buttons can be functional or decorative, and our selection covers both possibilities. Every now and then we add a few new buttons, and last week was one such occasion.

We noted a lack of brightly-colored buttons for baby and children’s garments, and filled the void with the round ones you see above and the sweet stars pictured below.

Anne recently knit two pairs of Churchmouse “Welted Fingerless Gloves,” both with Brooklyn Tweed Arbor. The simple design is a nice one to embellish with tiny buttons, and pearly ones seem to match every possible color, so we brought in a few more options with that use in mind.

Not all button choices are so strategic, however; some come from simple preference. Anne and I share a fondness for wooden buttons, and these square ones caught our eye, so they found a way into our most recent button order.

Next time your project wants buttons, remember our little button section. See you at the shop!

Last year, we ended the summer with a reorganization of the shop. We kicked off the Fall season by sorting every skein of yarn by suggested gauge, giving ourselves just four days to go from semi-order to total chaos to a tidy, intuitively organized shop. It was hard work, but we made it, and our new system has served us well over the past year. This year, we set our sights on a much smaller facet of the shop to overhaul: the buttons.

We have always carried a small selection of interesting buttons; Anne has a good eye for unique buttons that really finish a garment. Yet most of our buttons lived in little baggies in little drawers, only to be seen by button-seekers with plenty of time on their hands and a willingness to sift and sort. Shopping at market, choosing buttons for the shop, we went a little overboard, in part because it’s just so fun to pick out buttons! It should be just as fun at the Hillsborough Yarn Shop, it was decided, and so reorganizing the buttons became my mission this past few weeks.

Buttons are best displayed in tubes, where they are visible but contained, safe from scratching or slipping away from their friends. We had a lot of buttons, but few tubes, so my first task was to count and measure the buttons so that we could order enough tubes in the correct sizes. When the tubes arrived (100+!), I began filling them with buttons, labeling them with prices, and affixing buttons to the top of each tube to show what was within. Then I sorted all the button tubes by color and onto the shelf they went.

Perhaps it seems strange, but I am utterly delighted by this little change to the shop. It is so satisfying to see our understated button collection newly in the spotlight, and organized by color, no less. Look for our new button display by the worsted weight yarns in the front room, and think of the Hillsborough Yarn Shop when next you need a button!