CHINESE BUTTONS - day 1-

Hello my friends!!!  I have been putting together this tutorial about:  Chinese buttons, and it is rather long, so, I hope you bare with me for a few days, and will also enjoy with me, the warmth and the coffe of this beautifull country.  Yes, you have arrived to Costa Rica, well known for many beautifull things, but also, for its Rainforest!!!

To start with, we are going to need:  1 pair of plyers.   I will use jewlery ones, but you can even use the ones for the eyebrows, or a pair of small swisors.

Cord:  this can be like the one they call:  rat´s tail, or you can make a cord with fabric, like the one I am using, that is made with the same fabric that I made a jumpsuit.

Needle and thread and a big big needle to thread the cord and.............all the enthusiasm you can gather!!!

 1-2.  We need our plyers.  In the case of this jewlery plyers, they stay close all the time, so I put a ribbon around to "tie" the size of the opening.  If yours are different, you have to find a way to make them stay open, the same size all the time.
 

 3.  You can see now the size that I needed my plyers to be open:  7 mm.  And the size also depends on how thick is you cord. It is a matter of triying.

 

4.  Now, you start by  keeping with your  thum the cord, and the other side, you wrap it around the twizers  2 times..

5.  Now, put the needle inside the wraping as you can see in the picture.

6.  And just go around again  2 times, but this time in the center, as you can see in the picture, and it has to go all around and outside the other 2 wrapings we did before.

7.  This is how it looks, after you have wrap around 2 times  (SORRY

  to repeat so much, but I really want you to understand me, if not by my words, then....with the pictures!!!)

 8.  I want you to look at your button, to see if is looking like mine....is it???  Becasue now, we have to pass the cord where the  2 points of the plyers are!!!

9.  Can you see how I am passing the big-big needle right where the point of the twizers is???  Be carefull, because you can pull to hard and the whole thing just collapse!!!

10.  Once you have secure with the needle the cords that are in the twizers, you can take ONLY THAT SIDE off the twizers, like you can see here

11.  Now, we go and pass the big-big needle through the other side, and we make sure not to let it loose from the twizers until is well secured inside the needle.

My friends, if  I am not mistaken, we have 37 pictures for this tutorial, and it is 11:30pm here....and I want to  go to sleep.  But, we will continue tomorrow.  BY THE WAY:  these are not the original chinese buttons, these ones  I think they are call:  Monkey fist.....I think......but they are very similar to the real chinese ones, and also much easyer to make.  You can also add the frogs if you want......or may be, when I will have to make some more, I will explain to you how to do the frogs, that are so nice and give them that....very chinese finish!!!