Crochet Button Necklace

Last week I was cleaning out some of my craft 'stuff' and came across a pattern for a crochet button necklace in an old Spotlight Get Creative magazine from 2011. As I used to do a lot of beading I thought it looked interesting and kept it but when I read through the instructions I realised you don't have to know anything about beading as you just need to know how to crochet a chain.

Do you cut the buttons off shirts when they can't be worn anymore? I had a look in my old button tin which belonged to my Mum....

...and I found lots of white buttons I had cut off shirts and tops in the last few years. You do need about 120 buttons for this necklace and if you don't have a collection at home the Op Shops usually sell them cheaply. I saw a container of them in our local Vinnies the other day which would have contained a few hundred buttons and the cost was $5. 

So if you would like to make one then grab a 4mm crochet hook and some crochet cotton. 2 ply was recommended but I only had 4 ply on hand and I didn't really like the colour  when it was finished so ended up buying some off-white cotton from Vinnies which I think is probably 4 ply as well. 

Count out your buttons and then thread them onto your yarn. I tried to vary the sizes as I threaded them so that all the same size weren't together.

Crochet 3 chain then move up the first button to the last chain then work 3 chain again.

Slide up the next button and repeat the process until you have crocheted all the buttons. 

Once you have done that and have one long length, then join the ends and tie off making sure you have done that securely as you don't want all the buttons dropping on the floor in the middle of the supermarket. LOL!

I actually found a little cube shaped button that I threaded the yarn though after tying a few secure knots, then cut it off and put some glue into the opening of the button just to make sure it wouldn't come undone. 

If you like these then experiment with a few different colours of yarn and perhaps coloured buttons as well if you have enough. I used reasonably small buttons from shirts in the main interspersed with larger buttons, keeping in mind the weight of the finished necklace as I didn't want anything heavy to wear. It's a great way to use up all those shirt buttons don't you think?

My sister rang late this afternoon asking if we had had any rain as there was flash flooding over her side of town. We had only had a few spits at that stage and just presumed we had missed out on the rain. A half an hour later it bucketed down and the driveway was just mud before long. I hope you had some rain if you live in our area. Supercells have been forecast for tomorrow in Queensland so stay safe everyone and hang on to your hats! Hail has been forecast so I will be putting some of my plants under the house....just in case ;-)