Cosmetic Touch-Up -- this is how I do

I hope you had a lovely Christmas with your family. Now that the holidays are over (although there is still a New Years holiday coming), you may have some time for your thimbles. So today I am going to talk about some cosmetic touch-up.

It would be wonderful if one's thimble turned out impeccable as it is, but most of the cases it needs some tidying up. There is no way to fix the stitches once the thimble is finished, but there is a way to make your thimble look prettier.

Since the stitching thread runs criss-crossing the body of the thimble like weaving, and thus leaving crossing points which should form a straight line. However these crossing points may not always be so cooperative and wouldn't leave a straight line like above picture.

Well, what would you do about it? Pick a thick needle or very fine stiletto and insert the point of the needle between the fold of the thread like above picture, and ease the threads so that the crossing line becomes straight.

See? Much nicer. Although I firstly took this picture, then disrupted the crossing line and took the first picture above, then fixed it in the second picture, because I needed something you can clearly see, but it doesn't matter. You know what I mean to apply a cosmetic touch-up to your thimble.

In this picture can you see where to fix, not as obvious as the first case though? This is what I got after finished stitching, no deliberate disruption like the one above. I really needed to sort this out.

Looks much better. You can use the same needle you used to stitch for this fix but it tends to bend or break so I recommend to use a thick needle or thin stiletto, the one you use for white embroidery. You don't need to wait until you finish stitching, but you can tidy up as you go, as a matter of fact it's better you do it during stitching. However, do not over do or obsessed about it otherwise you can never finish your thimble :)

This is not about "how I do", but do you think you could be more tempted to make one for yourself if I make a, say, "your very first thimble kit" and sell it at my shop? Many people commented on my "how I do's" helpful, but if you have never seen this kind of thimbles in real before, let alone made it, you may still feel reluctant to start it by yourself? I think I would. You may not want to invest on something you may not like it enough to continue making it until you use up all the thread or bias binding or anything. I don't think I would. Perhaps a kit with one finished padded thimble base with enough thread for one thimble, maybe pre-stitched a row or two so that you just continue stitching? I will think about it and in the meantime, I am going to host another photo sharing at Flickr next month. I will post the details in January but the rules should be the same. I look forward your participation.