Ottoman

Turkish Thread Covered Buttons By Barbara Viruet Known in the SCA as Lady Behiye bint Kismet This is a tutorial for making buttons usable on Ottoman Turkish Kaftans from the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. They may be period before and after but I do not possess the documentation to verify that for certain. Materials you will need: Several skeins of embroidery floss of your choosing, I use a silk floss or cotton perle. A needle with a large thin eye Scissors Beads, I use a 10mm wooden bead in this tutorial but several different kinds can be used, just make sure the center hole is big enough. Plastic pony beads can be used if they need to be machine washable but use cotton on them as the machine does bad things to silk floss. Directions: 1. Cut a two foot piece of floss and thread your needle.

2. Leaving a tail of several inches, go through the center hole and wrap your bead until no spaces can be seen between the wraps.

3. Wrap the thread around something circular or your finger and go back down the hole towards the short tail end, you are creating a loop that will allow you to attach it into a flat seam.

4. Tie a knot at the base with the tail and working thread then go back through again to make a second loop (this is for strength).

5. Go back down through the hole

6. Tie a square knot that is snug against the base of the button, this is the knot that will be visible and it should look neat but not so tight that it disappears into the core of the button. The picture shows it done very loosely so you can see how the knot is formed.

7. Unthread your needle and then thread both loose ends through the needle together.

8. Bring them down through the top of your button and pull it snug so that the knot is seated firmly in the top of the center hole..

 9. Cut the loose ends close to the base.

Finished button

Books that you can see pictures of extant buttons:

Atasoy, Nurhan. IPEK: The Crescent and the Rose : Ottoman Imperial Silks and Velvets. London: Azimuth Editions, 2000. Print. Rogers, J. M., Selma Delibas, and Hlye Tezcan. The Topkapi Saray Museum: Costumes, Embroideries and Other Textiles. London: Thames and Hudson, 1986. Print. Woman in Anatolia: 9000 Years of the Anatolian Woman ... Istanbul: Turkish Republic, Ministry of Culture, General Directorate of Monuments and Museums, 1993. Print.