Little Happy Things

Check out these beauties! These are buttons that I purchased a year or so ago, just as a random purchase from Etsy. I think I was looking for buttons to sew onto a scarf as decoration (which, come to think of it, has yet to materialize), and I stumbled upon these and added them to my collection of crafty beauties!

These buttons are going to look great on my Copycat Sears Cardigan. After much perusal on the great wide web, I think that I will be attaching them by using a clear button on the wrong side for them to anchor onto, and will make sure the shank sits horizontally, and then I will wrap the shank with the thread a few times to prevent it drooping or flopping around. Thanks to TECHknitter who offered that advice on a Ravelry forum. Man, that knitter is a genius! Run, don't walk, to visit that blog. You will not regret it, and you will come away ten times wiser!

Anyway, the Etsy shop that I purchased these buttons from was Buttonsgalore. She is a Canadian Etsy seller from Montreal, and has the most beautiful selection of vintage buttons and SUCH reasonable prices. You think it'll be cheaper to visit Walmart, but after a visit to the fabric section, you find out that it's much harder to get 8 buttons the same type and of the same size for a comparative price. And, well... when I dug these buttons out to take the photo of them above, I decided to pay a little visit to the shop, and... ahem... I'll have a few little presents arriving in a couple of weeks. I'm so weak, but go and have a look, and I'm sure you'll be similarly weakened!

Progress on the Copycat Cardigan continues. I spent a couple of hours the other day trying to make sure I had the right stitch count and, in the mess, I thought I'd made it the increases on the body at the wrong point. I thought, "Well, I'll just make drop those stitches and re-make them a few stitches to the right with a crochet hook." Yeah, right. I started working on them, but then, wow... was that a mistake. It looked awful. And THEN... I discovered that I was actually right the first time. By that time the mistake had turned into a disaster, and was rapidly becoming an emergency. I looked down, sighed, and realized this was one of those lessons to remind me that I am indeed not perfect, and to get the heck over it. So, frog, frog, frog, five very long rows down. Ah well...

I'm having some minor palpitations that I may yet need more wool, but I think I'm just a little shaky after that last repair. Breathe, Adriene... just breathe...