There's no doubt that Karey Solomon has a great idea using buttons as the center of tatted motifs!

 Having seen the decorative buttons  at our fabric store, I went back to take a second look.  There were buttons with as many as 6, 9 or 16 holes.  Ideas were beginning to creep in.  So I bought a few to try the technique.   The first one used a craft button with 4 rather large holes.  The look wasn't too bad:  The Button is about 3/4 inches in diameter so I used size 10 Flora.  The colors aren't the best, but this is a prototype, not a finished piece at all.

 I had been working on embellishments for the Tat Days Quilt that uses the theme "Tatting, Tea and Toffee" and had already completed this teapot from Martha Ess's book "Tea is for Tatting."  The book is available through Handy Hands, Tatting Corner or just about any reliable tatting outlet.  (While Martha's Website has gone away, (courtesy of AT & T ISP changes), her blog is still there.  Here's where you can find it.

The center got me thinking:  Button?     Why not?    Button!!

And here's what I came up with:

My revision using a button center                                              Martha's original teapot design