Dorset Button Posy Brooches

Dorset buttons are a traditional type of handmade button made by working simple stitches in thread around a ring. They can be plain affairs in a single colour or as fancy and multi-coloured as you like. One of the prettiest styles is the posy of flowers, and I’ll show you how to make one and turn it into a brooch. It looks difficult but trust me, it’s not.

I like to use stranded cotton embroidery thread for these one-off, decorative buttons, because it has a slight sheen to it. Fine silk thread makes a more luxurious-looking brooch, so maybe work up to using that if you find you enjoy the process.

Stranded cotton embroidery threads in green and several other colours

A brass or plastic curtain ring, any size but around 1” (25mm) diameter is good to start with

Scissors

A tapestry (ie blunt) needle of a size to suit 2-6 strands of thread

A brooch back or a pin/button badge and felt (or a safety pin will do)

A glue gun (optional)

Casting is the traditional term for the first stage of making a Dorset button, covering the ring with thread so that it’s completely hidden.

Choose a thread colour that makes a good contrast with the selection of colours you’re going to use for the flowers. It also needs to go with the green you’re going to use for the stems – a different shade of green is a good choice because then the wraps of stem colour you’ll be making in Step 3 won’t stand out too much where they go around the top of the ring. Cut a generous length of thread - you don’t want to run out during casting – and thread the needle with all 6 strands. I find that a 1m (40") length is enough for my 25mm (1”) rings, but it will depend on the thickness of the ring as well as its diameter.

Now work blanket stitch around the ring - working anticlockwise is probably easiest for a right-handed person. Start by holding the tail end of thread against the front of the ring, pointing left, and work the first few blanket stitches over it to secure it. Refer to the photo for guidance: you need to take the needle down into the centre of the ring, under the ring and up over the thread leading from the previous stitch (or from the tail end in the case of the first stitch). If you hold the loop from the previous stitch in your left hand (assuming you’re right-handed) as well as the ring, then you can work the stitch in one movement. Pull gently on the thread with your right hand to close up the new stitch you’ve created while using your left hand to snug it up against the previous stitch without leaving a gap.

Once you’ve done the first 5 or 6 blanket stitches over the tail end you can cut off what’s left of it. Continue round the ring until you get back to the starting point. You shouldn’t be able to see the ring showing through anywhere. Take the needle through the first stitch to join up to it, then leave it hanging for now while you work the next step.

In this stage, the ridge of blanket stitch “knots” around the outer edge is moved to the back of the ring so that it won’t be seen from the front. Just push the ridge over the edge to the back, a short length at a time, again working anticlockwise around the ring until you’re back at the starting point. Try to get the ridge to form a neat circle on the back, halfway between the inner edge and the outside edge.

Now secure the thread by taking a few tiny stitches through the ridge where you closed the ring of blanket stitches and then cut off the thread.

In the commonest, plainest type of Dorset button known as a crosswheel of cartwheel – like the white ones in the photo - laying involves creating spokes of thread at evenly spaced intervals. But for this posy we will instead lay fewer spokes and they will only cover a portion of the circumference.

Thread the needle with another 1m (40") length of green thread for the stems, but this time use only 3 strands. Secure the end by taking a few stitches into the ridge on the back, or use a knot. With the smooth, front side of the ring facing you and the thread attachment place at about the 2 o’clock position, take the thread down the back of the ring to the half past six position, and back up the front to where you started. Pull it taut enough for it to stay in position without slipping, but not excessively tight. That's the first of 7 spokes made.

For the second spoke go down the back to a point just to the right of where you went round the bottom of the ring before, then back up the front to a point at the top a third of the way between where you started and the 12 o’clock position. (Just judge this by eye, total accuracy isn't needed here.)

For the next spoke, go down the back and round the bottom of the ring a little to the right again, then back up the front to a point that is another third of the way back to 12. The 4th spoke is the central one, it should go around the bottom of the ring at 6 o’clock and the top at 12 o’clock. Work another three spokes with the same spacing, so that the final one ends up at 5.30 at the bottom of the ring and 10 o’clock at the top.

You should now have 7 evenly spaced spokes that have wider gaps between them at the top of the ring than at the bottom. To finish the laying stage, take the thread down the back to the place where all the spokes cross, wrap it around the spokes and, while holding that wrap in place with one hand, take the tip of the needle under the wrap and pull the thread through to tie a simple knot. Pull it fairly tight to stop the thread wrap from slipping and at the same time draw in the spokes to create a "waist" and give the effect of a bunch. Wrap the thread around this knot several times to hold it in place and make the waist more pronounced, then secure the thread with another simple knot. Don’t cut off the excess, you'll use the same thread in the next step.

You can if you wish tie a single strand of embroidery thread in a contrasting colour around the waist in a bow, like a ribbon. (See the example pinned to a lapel with an orangey-brown bow in the photo at the top of this Instructable.) That's best done at the end of the process in Step 5, but if you intend to have a ribbon then keep the number of wraps in the spokes colour to the minimum necessary to hold the bunch shape, or it may look bulky.

The final stage of making a traditional Dorset button is called rounding and for a crosswheel it involves working a sort of circular weaving in backstitch over the spokes. But for a posy we will instead weave across the upper part of the spokes only, above the waist, to create a fabric onto which we can embroider flowers.

Using the same thread as for laying, work a backstitch around each pair of threads that make a spoke (ie the thread across the back of the ring and the corresponding thread that came up the front), just above the waist. To do the backstitch from right to left, take the needle under the rightmost spoke and up on its left side, then back *down on its right side, under both it and the adjacent spoke, and up*. Then go around that spoke and the next one in the same way by repeating the section between the asterisks in the previous sentence. Carry on across all the spokes.

When you get to the far side, wrap right round it and then work back in the opposite direction. No matter which way you're going, it's always under two spokes in the direction of working and over one spoke in the reverse direction. When working right to left you come up on the left of a spoke and down on the right. When working left to right it's the opposite.

You may need to push the backstitches down towards the waist a little as you make them, but don't try to create a dense fabric, it just needs to be substantial enough to form a base for the next step, the flowers. And it doesn't have to be neat, it's going to be covered up.

Continue until the space has been filled up to the top of the ring, or nearly to the top. Secure the end by stitching into the blanket stitch ridge and cut the thread.

For the flowers, you’re going to work French knots.

You’ve probably done French knots at some time in your life, but in case you were only seven and that’s a long time ago, here’s how to do it. You might want to practise first on a scrap of fabric.

1. Take the thread up through the fabric, wrap the needle around the thread 3-4 times close to where it emerges from the fabric, then take the needle down through the fabric near to where it came up.
2. As you pull the thread through the fabric, use your thumb of the other hand to hold the loops in place on the surface, and don’t pull so hard that they disappear.

And that’s it – rinse and repeat.

So, for this brooch use all 6 strands of thread to make bold flowers, or 2-3 strands if you prefer lots of smaller ones. You won't need such a long length as before. Work French knots randomly over the triangle of fabric created during the rounding stage, one colour at a time. Leave a little bare gap above the tie that holds the bunch together and also let some green show through in one or two other places.

I like to leave a few inches of thread hanging at the back before starting a new colour, then when I've worked French knots with the remaining colours I can judge whether any area needs an extra knot or two in a particular colour to balance things before I go back and finish off all the ends.

Start and finish each new length of thread on the back where it won’t be seen. You want at least 3-4 different colours, they can be very different or all similar shades for a more subtle effect.

Don’t try to make the flowers too neat and even, they’ll look more natural if they’re a bit higgledy-piggeldy. But if you decide when you've finished that any of them look too messy then you can coax the coils of thread into place with the blunt end of your needle.

When you're satisfied with the arrangement, it's time to tie a single strand of thread around the bunch as a ribbon, if you wish. (See final photo in this step and first photo of the next step.)

The final step is to make this Dorset button into a brooch. The simplest way to do that is to affix a brooch pin to the back of the woven fabric created in Step 4 with hot melt glue or by sewing it on. If you use glue, be sure to push the brooch back well into the molten glue so that some of it oozes through the holes to anchor it firmly to the button.

It can be hard to find a brooch pin small enough to be hidden by a posy button made on a 1" ring. An alternative is to glue or stitch a felt cover around an existing pin badge (aka button badge), leaving the pin on the back exposed and free to move. Then glue or stitch the Dorset button onto the front. Or glue it onto a plain plastic button and then glue the brooch back onto that. Or stick a disk of felt onto a penny washer and use that as the base.

No brooch back or badge? Just sew one side of a safety pin to the button, leaving the pin free. It won't be very easy to take on and off, but for a brooch that's going to stay on a coat lapel for a while it'll be fine.