Although they are all similar size, Othillia G—— carefully ponders in advance the shape befitting each button hole: rounded, box, horizontal/vertical stretch, or keyhole (the latter is one of her favorites). In close consultation with Hilde Van Gelder, and sometimes as well with other collaborators, she embroiders the holes by hand or sews them with a machine, identifying the edging blanket stitches used through codes that follow a strict protocol. You find these code names underneath every button. The talking book’s purpose is to allow the represented persons, objects and places to come to rest through the mental images that they reveal. For now, it still contains a great number of nonworking buttonholes. These provisional markings will be snipped open for you as Othillia, her collaborators, and their correspondents proceed. While you follow the operation, you can understand every button as the other’s distant relative. They are “family of the seventh button hole (familie van het zevende knoopsgat),” as they say in northern Belgium. In the South they call them “des cousins à la mode de Bretagne.” This collection is preserved in Othillia’s home at De Blinkerd aan Zee. It forms the foundation of the business De Blinkerd.