My last post, involving my Grandmother’s broach, reminded me of this picture.

This is a totally unscripted photo that I took one day as I was clearing off my desk. I was putting things aside and I looked over and saw this pile and it all seemed so inter-related to me, in that moment, that I stopped and took a picture.

This is my knitting binder, where I keep all of my patterns. I sometimes slip random things into the front pocket, just to keep them safe and out of the way. There are Galen’s footprints, from the day he was born, a note card from my mother, featuring the artwork of a friend and the postcard that my parents sent me from Paris in June. The day that it arrived, Steve plopped the mail down in front of me and walked out of the room. When he heard my exclamation of “aww…”, he asked what was going on. Before I had a chance to answer, he said “Never mind, it’s the baby feet.” (oh how well he knows me) When I turned over the postcard, the first line from my mother read: “I just couldn’t resist these little feet!” What can I say? It’s heredity…my grandmother was the very same way.

Laying on top of Galen’s footprints is the little swatch my mother sent to show Iain the pattern for the blanket she is making him. Then of course, there is the jar of buttons…

Several months ago, I was reading on another blog about a woman who inherited her grandmother’s button collection. Which started me thinking about my own Grandmother and the jar of buttons she gave us to play with when we were children. How much joy we found arranging and stacking them, lacing them onto strings…I found myself sad at the thought that I had no idea what had become of that little jar of buttons after my Grandmother’s death. The more I thought about it the more upset I got. Most likely, some thoughtless person just tossed them out while sorting through her things. Then I started thinking of my own mother’s little tin of buttons. It was at this point that I started to feel a bit panicky, what if *my* mother didn’t have her little tin of buttons anymore??? After-all, she doesn’t really sew and they did clean out a lot of stuff when they moved a couple of year back.

I decided to call her right then and there to check. I explained what had happened and I told her that if she ever planned on getting rid of her buttons to please be sure to give them to me instead.

Now there are a great many reasons why my mother is wonderful, too many to even begin to list here. Certainly one of the reasons that she is so very wonderful would have to be the fact that not only did she still have her little button tin, but she also had all of my grandmother’s buttons and even the very same jar…

And so she brought them too me on her next visit. I poured over them wondering who’s shirts they came off of and what projects they were intended for.

My favorites? The teeny-tiny heart shaped button that is just begging to be used on a piece of baby clothing. My grandmother was a great believer in babies. And the little unopened packet of buttons, complete with price tag, $.23.

Every mother should have a button jar.