Vintage and Antique Crochet Button Bracelets by Grandma Rupp

My grandma was a very crafty lady.  She and my grandpa lived in a mobile home community where there was a recreation room that held craft-type classes for the residents of the mobile home park.  I remember some of the things she made like Lady bug refrigerator magnets made from felt, bean bag frogs, the pattern I still have and still make one of these for a gift once a while; and she crocheted jewelry like rope necklaces made from tiny beads and very fine crochet thread, and...
My very most favorite of all her craft projects, these beautiful bracelets crocheted with antique and vintage glass buttons.  

Grandma Rupp's button bracelet #1

Most of the buttons are glass, some are plastic but still very beautiful

The inside view of Grandma Rupp's Button Bracelet - pattern coming soon !

I'm posted a lot of photos of the bracelets hoping you would be able to get the feel for the way they are made.  I haven't written a pattern for these yet, I'm still trying to find a way to get the buttons to be placed where I want them to be rather than where the button thinks its position on the bracelet ought to be.  It's a lot more challenging than it first appears because of the variances in size and weight of the buttons being used. 
Here's another button bracelet my grandmother made:

As you may be able to see that the only stitches used to make this bracelet are 5 ch st and a sc in the next ch 5 loop.  Looks easy right?

I tried to position the bracelet so you could see it at another angle and how it is constructed with simple crochet stitches

I like that you can see the stitches between buttons in this view, and that you can see my favorite buttons - the small multi-colored glass ones to the left and one toward the center of the bracelet

It ought to be noted that Grandma Rupp used an elastic crochet thread - where she found this foil-wrapped elastic thread I'll never know, I've been searching for something similar to it for a long time.  I find the elastic crochet thread fairly easily but I'd prefer to use something more fancy than the ones I've come across.   I think Granda Rupp's choice of the gold foil wrapped thread was perfect for the bracelets it really pretties them up even more than just the buttons which are beautiful in themselves.

Obviously the pattern is simple:  ch 5, sc in next loop, the question lies in the button placement so I am working on figuring that out.  It would be easier to see if I wasn't distracted so much so often, lol.  (2 dogs, 3 cats, a really cute physical therapist, a very handsome occupational therapist, a fairly tall, and dark and handsome registered nurse, and a social worker who all come different days, different times of the the week.  Oh yea, throw in phone calls and me catching up on stupid cell phone games. )  I want it to be easy so I'm probably making it too hard and when I get frustrated I have to put it down and walk away to clear my head.  A lot can happen to make me forget to go back to it and there it may lay on the dining room table for days, quietly waiting for me to finish what I started with it.  I'm not very good at sticking with one thing till it's done, I don't know about you but I have quite a few crochet projects waiting for me to "get back to them".

Hopefully a pattern will be coming soon, or one of you will figure it out so that the buttons lay nicely as they do on these bracelets and post it.  If that happens, please come to this post and share your pattern link in the comments below.

Thanks for coming with me for a blast to the past.  Have a blessed day!

Crochet Motif Patterns (Japanese)

I've been slacking on blog posting and the promise of Japanese crochet motif patterns.  Hopefully these will make up for my neglect, enjoy and let me know what you plan to make with one or more of these..

Note: If you want to print these out it's best to right click on the image and download it to your hard drive and print it from there.

Note (last one lol) if you pray and believe God answers prayers, please scroll to bottom for an important prayer request, thank you, God bless you.

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On a personal note; I  met a woman on the bus tonight, her name is Denise.  We got to talking and she ended up telling me a horrible story about her 6 year old grand daughter, whom she was heading up to see at the hospital near my house here in Las Vegas.  Long story short, apparently the little girl was pushed out of a two-story window by her aunt who had her for the weekend - and the little girl sustained major brain trauma and a massive skull fracture.  She's recovering quickly from two surgeries but the perpetrator in this case needs to be brought to justice for the little girl's sake.  God sees it fit to heal her, (Thank you God!) let's give God a little nudge (or a big one!) to make sure the person, whomever it turns out to be, who did this to her won't be able to hurt her or any other child again.  Thank you for your prayers, God bless you and .  *The little girl's name is Jalynn.*  Thanks again, I know God will hear our prayers.