Hello Makers!
Let’s talk buttons! Maybe not the first thing on the list to get excited about when planning a project! Yet here at Pigeon HQ we’re hoping to change that and make choosing the right buttons just as exciting as choosing the right fabric!
We have once again relaunched our Etsy shop to sell directly to customers our collection of buttons, The Speckled Collection. You will see a certain familiarity in each button as certain colours and textures run through each button, they reflect the beauty of unpredictability and texture. I love how sewists are moving towards bold, solid fabrics and these buttons were sourced to compliment that.
The conception of all this came from Ana (cocowawa) a truly inspirational maker and pattern designer and even more specifically her pattern the Maple dress. I bought this pattern as soon as it came out, I had seen Ana wearing a sample a few weeks before and fell in love! The only cause to pause…..buttons. The pattern requires four prominent front closure buttons and while a million fabric ideas rolled through my head the lack of buttons to compliment was disappointing!
Amidst this I was starting a Fabric Wholesale business and while sourcing fabrics I couldn’t help but to look out for buttons, purely for myself and this pattern. The buttons I ended up finding were beautiful and the more I sourced, the more I wanted to make all I found available to everyone!
While setting up my wholesale business everything button related was put on hold. Being a wholesaler I was a bit conflicted/unsure of how to sell the buttons, it wasn’t viable to make them a wholesale product in the beginning, a bit of time (and brainstorming) was a blessing and lead me to launching the buttons as a Pigeon Wishes product.
I worked with an incredible illustrator, Georgina Baker, to bring the product to life with these beautiful backing cards. As a vintage lover I wanted the buttons to have a touch of keepsake specialness and to be easily displayable within your sewing area.
Putting a product (and really yourself) out into the public is scary. Self doubt always (ALWAYS) creeps in. The sewing community is known for being highly supportive of indie businesses and I’m very thankful to be on the receiving end of such encouragement.