On this lovely Saturday with a sky filled with blue, 

The Button Queen in London. 

It has been on my to do list for quite a while, it was as good as I had hoped and we spent a wonderful hour or so looking through a shop that had the qualities of a museum. 

There were several sets of enamelled 18th/19th century buttons that I fell in love with, sadly my bank manager would never have understood and not being able to split a set, I sighed wistfully and wandered over to the next case in which to look and stare. 

It really was jolly good fun. 

So much to choose from, eventually I settled on, 

these few buttons, some old but nice replicated horn buttons in colours that I know I will knit at some time in the future. A cardigans worth of red which if not in real life, is on the needles in my imagination and a selection of childrens buttons with which to decorate any baby surprises that may come my way.  

That old button you see, well it just jumped into my hands and wouldn’t let go. 

Would you like a close up?

 Isn’t it adorable. 

I couldn’t leave it. 

Made in the 1800’s, a picture button of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf written by the Grimm brothers, apparently there are whole sets of picture buttons representing  Grimms fairytales.  

 We popped into Liberties, Christmas is coming. 

 I bought some wool for a winter hat and looked for a graduated tailors set square with no luck.  

And then we wandered around a little more until we came upon Regent’s, 169 Regent Street.  I only mention the address as they have no website. They sell top brands, Versace, Valentino and Armani along with hand tailoring suits and selling luxury high end, (the highest of high end) Cashmere, silks, rare fibres mainly for suiting material.  I was lucky enough to see the fabrics on the basement floor, the fabrics started at £150.00 a meter and went up from there, I saw cashmere (which was dreamily soft) for £450.00 a meter, and there were fabrics that went up to £900.00 a meter.  It was a large basement, it was piled high with bolts of fabrics. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.  We chatted to the gentleman serving us and he realised I was a seamstress and was very accommodating whilst the manager was quite gruff.  That was until he realised and in his words “Oh, your a Tailor” and his stance immediately changed, and couldn’t do enough for us. Fabrics were whipped out of the off cuts pile, packages unsealed, fabric flipped open and unfolded and then fabric flew through the air to show us the faults, (moth’s had had a little picnic on the crease (where it creases in the middle on a bolt) hubby and I chose a couple of pieces of fabric that would serve us well.  One a lovely heathered blue and green wool normally retailing at £150.00 per meter, there was 3.2 meters for the sum total of thirty pounds and hubby chose a piece of wool and silk in a toned down acid green which will make a very nice waistcoat for a fiver.  I can’t show you the fabrics because they are residing in the freezer at the moment, and then they will be washed, dried and re frozen and then stored carefully away from my stash just in case, but I am sure it is going to be fine.  I shall most definitely be trotting in to see what he has in the way of offcuts next time we are in that area. 

Fortunately we didn’t miss the train, we were too tired to stay much longer.