![cut up and ready for use](http://www.mycrosspatch.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/1-IMG_4735.jpg)
So, having cut up all my charity shop shirts I have a satisfactory pile of checked fabrics which make the beginnings of a potential new plaid quilt. I think I need some more greens and also some more deep saturated colours. I’m going to keep collecting till I have a mix I like, and then start cutting.
![mostly shirt buttons](http://www.mycrosspatch.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/1-IMG_4806-300x232.jpg)
One secondary benefit of all those shirts is a healthy supply of shirt buttons to add to my button jar. Pictured are my shirt buttons and a selection of buttons which were orphaned and hanging about the house in drawers and on surfaces waiting to be re-homed.
Being a practical person, when I come home from a shopping trip with a new garment I always cut off the little plastic bag with the spare buttons in and put them carefully aside in case I ever lose a button… but I’m also a great believer of that old adage “a stitch in time saves nine” or in this case “a stitch in time saves having to replace a button” so if I see a loose button I re-stitch it, consequently I rarely lose my buttons. Those many little plastic bags containing buttons remain long after the garment they came with has long since departed my wardrobe.
![button jar](http://www.mycrosspatch.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/1-IMG_4799-200x300.jpg)
These buttons in bags have mostly gravitated to my button jar, but they do not have much to recommend aesthetically, in fact as a button jar mine was hardly a thing of beauty. Plastic has its place and I would not be without it, but it is not pleasing to the eye.
![no more plastic bags](http://www.mycrosspatch.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/1-IMG_4805-296x300.jpg)
Taking as my guide William Morris, who said “Have nothing in your house which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful” I want my button jar to be both useful and beautiful. I have ejected all the plastic and added the shirt buttons. It is only a small jar, and not very full but time will take care of that, grandma’s always have the most well stocked button collections and I have a few years to go yet before I will qualify, age wise. I wonder how many plaid shirt quilts I would have to make to fill the jar? But then if I use the buttons to tie the quilt I might end up buying buttons.
![That's better.](http://www.mycrosspatch.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/1-IMG_4808-200x300.jpg)