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Thread Covered Buttons

Sixteenth century clothing has a multitude of closures. Sometimes garments were pinned in place such as ruffs or placards. Men would tie their hose to doublets to keep them up. Kirtles and doublets could be laced closed. But today we are discussing closures commonly used on doublets and jerkins, the thread covered button.

Boy with a Greyhound by Paolo Veronese, 1570's. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

 There is documentation in, Janet Arnold's Pattern of Fashion 3, that these buttons could also be placed on garments as purely decorative pieces. A loose gown in Nurnberg is held closed by a series of these buttons with loops, but other buttons appear to have been added among the embroidery to create impact and flare.


Italian Camica (called "Blouse") Detail, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
We know from pieces in our modern museums that many men across Europe used thread covered buttons as a relatively inexpensive way to close there outer garments. With one skien of DMC Embroidery Floss, an embroidery needle, and some round wooden beads we can create buttons like these for modern uses. In period, silk or metal thread would be used instead of DMC Embroidery Floss to cover the beads. If it is avaliable to you, please try silk and comment about your results. I hope to try silk thread on this one day, but while I practice with my first sets and different styles I will use cheep cotton instead.


For this style I passed the needle through the bead hold and tied the bead onto the end of my length of floss. I then did 5, evenly spaced, button hole stitches around the beat and secured the thread to my first knot.These six wraps of thread become ribs or anchor points for the rest of your stitches Finally I passed the needle with thread first under the next rib, around the rib a second time to secure my stitch, and then repeat with the next rib. After 5 buttons I am averaging about 35 minutes a button, but I am hoping to get my time down to 20 minutes a piece soon.

Try to leave a long tail at the end of the button, or attach one by making a knot in some more floss, pushing the needle up into the bead, wrapping a  few stitches around one of your ribs again, and bringing the stitches back down. Attach these buttons to your garment using some shank stitching.

Works Referenced

Arnold, Janet. Patterns of Fashion 3: The Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women c1560-          1620.  Hollywood: Quite Specific Media Group Ltd, 1985. Print.

Blouse, detail. 16th Century. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Archives. Web, 3 April 2012.

Caliari, Paolo. Boy with a Greyhound. 1570. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Archives. Web,             3 April 2012.

Malcolm- Davies, Jane and Ninya Mikhaila. The Tudor Tailor. Hollywood: Costume and Fashion Press,          2006. Print.
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