Utility glass buttons

In Berlin last year I was introduced to utility glass buttons. For some reason they were everywhere. They were new to me. I had never either seen them or really noticed them until I moved to Berlin. Having previously lived in France, buttons were something I looked at but not to buy. Usually people wanted 20 euro cents for one and that just seemed to be too expensive for me. 

This last week I went to the Quilt show held once a year in Alsace. It is the first time I went by myself which meant I was much faster at the exhibitions and had all the time I wanted to to shop the vendors. Oh what heaven that was! Walking the streets between exhibition sites there was a second hand shop. I like to stop into these. I don't expect anything in fabric to be found, but I do like to see if there is anything fun laying around.

"Do you understand the concept of the shop?" I was asked clearly in French by the volunteer working in the shop. " Yes" I answered. There was a sign that stated clearly in French that every item was 2 euros. Nosing around the shop, I found two large tin boxes of buttons. "How does the price work for buttons?" I asked as I pulled out a couple of carved mother of pearl buttons from one of the boxes. Thinking about it for a moment the volunteer said "If you buy both boxes you can have them all for 4 euros." Now I am the first to tell you that the box was filled with buttons I did not want, but the ability to go through the buttons later appealed to me so I agreed. The car was parked close by so I could drop them off before backtracking to the next exhibition. She did not charge me for the bits of lace I found (semi modern and rayon) nor the vintage spool of ribbon. She asked if she could keep the tin boxes as she could use them later for displaying items. I have kilos of buttons to go through now.

I returned back from the show on Monday morning. Wednesday I teach/ head up a small quilt group in Luxembourg. I am proud to say I am done with month 2 of the Craftsy.com block of the month offered earlier this year. Never mind that the class ended in August. You can watch it anytime so I thought now would be a good time to start. I bought the kit thinking that that would be a whole lot easier than trying to find fabrics in my stash to pack to come here. My goal is to have it done by the time I move again in December. I have not taken a picture of month 2, but here it is finished for month number 1.

Class ends at 3 pm so on the way home I stopped by a second hand store I go to once in a great while to see what they have. 

The topic of this blog today is utility glass buttons. There in the back, I could not believe my eyes. I found some, correction, I found many.

 I don't know why I like these. They are not the pretties that people like to collect, but I love the utility of them. They are just a little shiny and they have a nice weight to them. I have never seen them large like the ones on the card. Berlin had small ones. I also like that fact they are still attached to the card with a price of the back of 45 centimes. Now I have to think of a project to do with them.

At the same store I found this as well.

Ya, it is a sheet. I guess I collect them too. It looks to be cotton. The embroidery is cotton and it is in perfect condition. It will fit a double/queen bed. I love the fagoting. 

I do have the result from an unorthodox manner I used to remove rust from some lace. One of the pieces I bought in Paris had some rust staining where the pin holding a group of them together had begun to rust. If the rust damage is bad, there is nothing you can do. removing the stain removes what ever lace or fabric was there as the metal eats away at the threads. This one I could tell the damage was recent so I gambled and bought it anyway. 

I started by washing. No change to stain. 

I then put it in oxiclean. I do not recommend doing this to rust stains since it does exactly what you see  a couple pictures below. It makes it orange and spreads it out but it does not get rid of it. Biz does the same thing. So I began thinking...

The pots and pans in the apartment when we moved back in were filthy. I mean like this:

All of them. Nasty sticky burnt on never to come off yuck. I went on line and did some research about how to clean them. Everywhere I read suggested something called "Bar Keeper's Friend". I bought some, but only after everything else I tried did not work. So here is what it looks like now:

Now wait, the container clearly says it removes rust as well. What do I have to lose trying it on a lace bit. So here is the before, after it had been oxicleaned:

I can tell you from experience, that stain is not coming out no matter how long you soak it. Bleach does not work either, just a BTW...

I rubbed some "Bar Keeper's Friend" on it and left it damp for a couple hours and this is what it looks like:

Do you see it? One little area but the rest is gone. This is before I tossed it in the washer. It is totally gone now after the machine wash. I made sure to rinse it well before it was washed. I see no fiber damage. I doubt any will happen as the chemical is gone that cleaned it. Ya, it could have weakened the fibers, but I am not seeing that right now. I am going to wash it a couple more times and look for wear, but I don't think it is going to happen.

How cool is that?