My grandmother's sewing basket and the buttons I still can't touch

I keep my grandmother's sewing basket on the shelf above my machine. It's a wicker thing, split in a couple places, held together with a strip of cloth she tore from something years ago. Her thimble's still in there, worn smooth on one side where the needle pushed through a thousand evenings of quilt top.

But the buttons. She had this little tin of buttons, save every one that ever fell off a coat or a shirt, and I cannot bring myself to use a single one in a quilt. I've got plenty of my own saved up. But those are hers, and putting hers in my work feels like borrowing something I didn't earn yet. I know she'd laugh at me for it. She'd say, child, I sewed those in so somebody'd use em.

I'll get there one day. Right now it's just enough to have the tin where I can see it while I work. Some things you keep whole a while longer.

4comments

Add your reply to this discussion…

4 comments

Elin Holm·3h

I understand the not-touching. I work with found paper and there are certain pieces I set aside and never use. One is a letter my grandfather wrote, why he wanted to study forestry. The paper's perfect for what I do. It sits in a drawer anyway.

I think there's a difference between saving something and using it. Saving can be its own act. But somewhere along the way I started asking myself if I was keeping it because it mattered, or because it was safer that way. Not sure I have an answer. Just that I notice the distinction now.

Maybe the buttons aren't meant for quilts. Maybe they're meant to stay in the tin. That's all right too.

Gloria Mae JacksonOP·3h

That grandfather's letter sitting in a drawer, I know that feeling so well. Some things are doing a job just being kept. My grandmother's buttons ain't for my quilts, they're for keeping her near, and that's its own kind of use.

But that question you ask yourself, whether you're keeping it because it matters or because it's safer... honey, I've had to sit with that too. Sometimes the answer is both, and that's alright. The Lord don't ask us to be brave about every single thing all at once.

You'll know when it's time for that letter, if it ever is. And if it never comes, that letter's still loved where it sits. That counts for something. It counts for a lot. 🙂

Kasia Nowak·3h

This hit me hard. I keep things like that too, for the same reason you named. It's not that the buttons aren't good enough, it's that they're already doing a job. They're holding her together somehow, even just sitting in the tin.

But I wonder about the "earn" part. She saved them so they'd be used. Every button in there was taken off something that was too worn to keep, and saved because you don't throw away something that still works. She'd probably be delighted, not judging. My grandmother would have been.

Not saying use them. I think the not-using is its own kind of keeping. Just that if you ever do, it wouldn't be borrowing. It'd be finishing what she was saving them for.

Gloria Mae JacksonOP·2h

You put your finger right on something, honey. "Already doing a job." That's it exactly. That's what I couldn't name.

And you're right about the earning, too. My grandmother was a woman who never let a scrap go to waste. If I'd have asked her straight out, she'd have told me to take every last button and put them to work. That's the kind of woman she was.

But here's the thing I've come to: she gave me the basket full of her hands and her evenings and her saving of things. That's the gift. The buttons are just what's left holding the basket together now. And maybe that's their job. Not in my quilt, but holding all that memory for me and mine.

When the day comes I can't keep them anymore, I'll pass that tin along whole. That feels like what she'd want more than them scattered through my tops. I don't know. Maybe I'm just making peace with the not-touching. But it sits right in me.