On the needles: Constance

It's amazing what you can do with leftovers. After that intense spate of baby-blanketing, I had four balls each of Simply Cotton in Marshmallow, Malted Milk, and Toffee left over, and a new idea for a sweater, so I put 'em all together and here's what I've got so far. She's called Constance (in honor of Constance McCormick, whose phenomenal collection of cinema scrapbooks is now housed at the University of Southern California library, and Constance Winchell, probably best known for her work as Columbia University's reference librarian and her authorship of the comprehensive ALA Guide to Reference Books--but she also worked early in her career for the Merchant Marine supervising lighthouse libraries, which is probably one of the coolest jobs ever).

Turns out this prototype is a practically perfect match for the lovely brown mother-of-pearl vintage buttons my pal Margie C. sent me the other day, too. Margie is a fellow collector of buttons who really understands my fondness for them and sends me ones she thinks I'll particularly like...by which I mean, of course, that she is a total enabler. (Thanks, Margie!) I'm on the threshold of needing a larger tin for my ever-growing collection right now, but if I use these ones for this project, I can probably put that off until after I've come home from my next visit to my parents' place.

Although it used to be one of my favorite playthings, it's been years since I pawed through my mom's button tin, and I'm looking forward to poring over it again soon. Many of the buttons in it reportedly came from my great-aunt Marguerite, who was profligate in peculiar ways (for instance, if a button fell off a coat, she would just get a new coat--but she would save the buttons from the old one). My mom's been adding to it for decades now, and it's one of those things that I would probably try to grab if the house were on fire.