Do you know what a Dorset button is?

I was looking at some Dorset buttons yesterday - or rather, photographs thereof. 
An acquaintance stopped me briefly and showed me several photographs on her phone screen.
    "My sister sent these. She says they are buttons. She found them in a charity shop in America. Do you know if she's right?"
    "They're Dorset buttons," I told her and then had to explain.
Dorset type buttons were made mostly in Dorset, reaching the peak of manufacture in the 18th and 19th centuries. They were first hand made by covering small bone rings from the horns of the Dorset sheep. The ring itself would be completely covered with "blanket stitch" and then covered with a criss-cross of threads like the spokes of a wheel. Once that was formed then the maker would weave through and around the threads, rather like a very closely woven spider's web, to make the button.
Dorset button making once employed a great many people, mostly women who could work from home. It expanded rapidly when metal rings, made in Birmingham, were able to be used instead of the original horn. Being able to say, "I do buttony" was a matter of pride for many women. It helped to support their families and allowed them to be at home and care for them at the same time.
  Like many other cottage industries it came to an end when a button making machine was invented by one John Ashton. It came at the same time as increasing mechanisation on farms and the great increase in unemployment meant that many people looked to move to America and other places.
Finding the buttons in a charity shop was probably not that surprising. I actually doubt they are that old. Making buttons like that continued in other places for a time for the simple reason it was difficult to get actual buttons. From there it grew into a more decorative handcraft for putting  on household items.
Now though making Dorset buttons has become an art form. The  designs are many and varied and a wide range of materials are used in their creation. 
Those buttons are still holding things together!