Module 3 - Chapter 7 - Simple Button Making

TOGGLE BUTTONS

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Strips of fabric were rolled into toggles.The finished shape of the toggle is determined by the length thickness and shape (rectangular or triangular) of the strips of fabric.

From left to right (& top to bottom);

• pink canvas and green calico fabrics cut in isosceles shape & rolled together.
• green sweetie paper rectangle loosely spiralled with green wire.
• pink cotton 'right angled triangle' frayed and rolled.
• rectangle of patterned fabric overdyed green
• 'double isosceles triangles' rolled, then wrapped with metallic pink machine thread.
• 3 rectangles of varying thicknesses, the last layer using fabric decorated with machine whip & cable stitch.
• pink canvas 'filled' with thread cuttings from my 'scraps' jar.
• green isosceles triangle wrapped with wire & beads 



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The above toggles were made using meltable materials.

From left to right (& top to bottom);

• pink synthetic felt wrapped around green cotton & zapped with heat gun. The felt shrivelled and beaded beautifully giving a crunchy lace effect.
• right angled triangles in pink felt & green tyvec using heat gun.
• green felt wrapped around pink cotton using heat gun. I think perhaps the felt had been given a flame retardant coating as it shrunk away and developed the odd hole, but did not bead in the way that the pink felt did.
• purple nylon netting wrapped around pink canvas. The netting disintegrated rapidly, but with care I managed to achieve an interesting 'knobbly' effect.
• tyvec painted red on the inside & green on the outside, cut in a rectangle & zapped with heat gun.The tyvec shrunk & shrivelled away from the heat exposing the red layers beneath. The result was very hard and plasticky.
• red synthetic felt rectangle wrapped around pale green cotton & scored with the tip of a hot soldering iron.
• double isosceles triangles of tyvec painted in red & green. The strips shrivelled to give an amazing scale like effect.
• green plastic bag wrapped around cerise cotton & zapped with heat gun. The plastic shrunk quite evenly & developed pin prick holes that got bigger as the plastic got hotter. With care, these were just big enough to expose the pink fabric underneath. Finally the toggle was wrapped with green wire.
• red & green felt with heat gun, again I think these had been treated as they only shrunk and formed a tighter toggle.
• green tyvec wrapped around cerise cotton, zapped with heat gun, then wrapped with green wire.
• red cellofoil triangle wrapped around lime green cotton & zapped with heat gun. The cellofoil reacted rapidly to become a dull, hard melted mass, but managed to retain its shine & simply developed holes where the heat wasn't too intense.
• tyvek isosceles triangle painted red on the outside, green on the inside & zapped with heat gun. The tyvec shrunk away in quite a uniform manner & exposed the green layers underneath giving a beautiful candy stripe effect.
• red/green right angled triangle zapped with heat gun, then decorated with soldering iron.