Beaker Button Blog

I've been meaning to post this tutorial for a while, and this morning as I was lazing in bed I thought 'Ah ha, I could post that Ring tutorial for Mother's Day!'  So here it is.  Plus I get to use it as a blatant plug for our spankingly brand new button yarn, hand painted in my kitchen!   P.S. we have rings on our website if you can't find any ;-)  Thank you to Noelle for modelling the finished ring.   Flower button ring tutorial. Materials 1 brass ring about 1.5cm across, approximately 2m of Beaker Button hand painted button yarn , blunt ended needle, scissors. Materials There are four stages to making a Dorset Button on a ring.  Casting, Slicking, Laying and Rounding.  Change the amount of petals by varying the amount of spokes.  Remember that you must have an even number of spokes. Casting Have a length of yarn approximately 2m long. Tie the yarn round the ring in a single knot, leavin...

I taught myself a new skill today so I thought I'd share it with you all.  Of course I'm probably doing it all wrong but it worked for me.  I've tried blending on our wild carder but could never get a nice smooth batt to spin with.  I've realised that blending fibre using a carder works much better and takes very little work.  The photos are in order below.  It was fun trying to take them one handed.  Big thanks to the Boy for helping. 1. Pick your fibre.  I used  commercially dyed and carded merino tops 2. Pull off small amounts.  I used 2 colours as a base and 4 more as accents.  The ratio was about 2 - 1 base colour to accent.  I wasn't too precise about this however.  I was more interested in getting a nice random mix. 3. Lay the carder on your knee. 4. Taking the end of the first base colour in one hand comb it through the carder starting at the edge.  I held the fibre at the end so that the teeth on t...