Oh, those challenging firewheel centers! The dark, bloomed-out flowerets are around the outside of the center, while the yellow, currently-blooming flowerets are toward the center. Clearly this called for homemade buttons.
“I’m going to put them in the button jar until I find a good project to use them for,” she said. Like mother, like daughter!
My buttons were a little different. I made a Skinner Blend, a very clever technique which shades two or more colors into each other.
You start with two colors of clay fitted together diagonally like this:
*Fold the piece in half as shown in the picture, and run it through the pasta machine.*
Repeat between *s until the blend is even.
I rolled the resulting blend starting at the yellow end. This made a roll or a cane that shaded from yellow on the inside to burgundy on the outside. Thinking the buttons needed an even darker border, I blended some burgundy with black and made a dark burgundy border around the cane.
They look good! The best part: I cut buttons for the large flowers, then reduced the cane and cut button slices for the medium-sized flowers, then reduced it some more and cut button slices for the small flowers!
Ella and I used the scraps to make miracle beads and scrappy buttons.
“What are you going to do with all those scrappy buttons, Mom?”
“I’m going to put them in the button jar until I find a good project to use them for,” I said. Like daughter, like mother!