Time flies and farewell 2010

I had an end of the year luncheon with my mother and sister today and found this on the dish of hors d'oeuvre.  It says Time Flies and indeed it does.  Thank you for reading my blog posts this year and wish you and your family happy and prosperous 2011.

Share Your Thimbles December 2010

This month we have six participants with 10 thimbles/rings/ beading, despite the fact that it's December, one of the busiest months with holidays.  They are all very lovely and if you have not admired our work yet, here is a link to Flickr.  As you recall I have lifted the technical restrictions this month and you can see back stitches and weaving were used on a few thimbles/beading. 

We have six entry to the monthly lucky draw and the lucky winner of this month is number 4, quiltsummse, who shared her beautiful thimble named autumn forest with us.  

Quiltsummse, will you please send me an e-mail for shipping address? No hurry though, because the local post offices are now closed for New Years Holidays and won't be open until 4th of January.

Guess what?  I finally went ahead and made my own temari.  I have wanted to make temari for a long time but haven't got around to make one until now.  One of the main reasons why I didn't was the size of temari.  As I assumed that it was quite possible that I might be addicted to temari making, I feared I would need a lot of space to store temari.  One temari won't take too much space, but five or ten will require a substantial storage space, you know.

To save the storage space, I opted for a miniature temari.  In this size, I can store a score of them in a chocolate box easily.   

I used regular machine thread to wrap the ball and size 9 silk hand sewing thread (the same one I use for thimble making) and I am not very happy with the result.  It's quite possible that it is everything to do with my wrapping being so floppy (I know I need more work here) and nothing to do with the thread size being so similar but don't you think it looks too busy?   I am thinking silk floss for Japanese embroidery, the one untwisted silk fiber, for wrapping so that the background  would look much smoother.   Would temari experts kindly help me out?

maybe a little bit obsessed...

Further to my past post regarding my experiments on dark olive with lighter green, I made two more of the same design but in different colours:

With previous three pin cushions in amethyst and green, and these two, even I have to admit that I am a little obsessed, but I like the design and feel happy stitching. 

*** shop update ***
Actually this is not an update, but an announcement that I am seriously considering changing the currency of my shop.  At the moment the currency exchange rates are relatively stable, however when it fluctuates again I have to but  review the price of my merchandise and I really hate it.  Even though it's not a price hike from my point of view, it actually is for the customers.  Setting the price in Japanese Yen other than U.S. dollars allows me not to revise the price due to currency fluctuation.  I hope you understand.  Thank you.  C.P.

Share Your Thimbles - December 2010

I just can't believe it's already December.  I haven't completed as much projects as I hoped at the beginning of the year, but I am very proud of myself that I have been hosting a thimble photo sharing at Flickr throughout the year and this is the last occasion for you to join the group this year. 

As I told you the other day that it's our one year anniversary and our photo sharing is now into the year two this month.  I am not sure how this is going to affect the group, but I have decided to lift the ban on the technique you can use on your thimbles:  From now on you can use back stitch and weaving as well as embroidery on the surface.  My contribution to this month's photo sharing is orange pin cushion, in the same colours as Japanese maples (which do not produce maple syrup by the way) at the moment.  They won't last long and within a week or so these beautiful leaves will be all gone. 

Here are the general rules:

1. The thimbles (or any other rings) have to be your own work.

2. Although the group name says "thimbles", your work is not necessarily a thimble and you can make your rings in any size you would like, as small as a focal bead for the necklace or as big as a bracelet, or even bigger.

3. As stated above, they have to be your own work however, you can use the ring base from the kit if you choose to do so. It may not seem to be fair, considering I sell the kits, however, they are many other kits available (at least in Japan) and some of you may be able to obtain them, and it is definitely not fair to exclude the people brave enough to share their first work with us from the group.

4. No technique restriction applies.  You can use back stitch and weaving in addition to the forward  stitch, and even embroidery on the surface if you choose to do so.  This is not a contest.  You do not need to use these technique if you are not up to it or you simply do not feel like it.  A simple and elegant bi-coloured scales design is always welcomed.

5. You can use any material, and in any colours, you would like.

6. Please state the size of the mould on which you formed your ring base in the description field of the photo. Please also mention what threads and padding you used, too, so that we could compare notes. In case you bought one of my kits, here are the size and materials: "first thimble" is 50mm in circumference and Tire Silk size 9 & floss silk padding. "small pincushion" is 61mm in circumference and Tire Silk size9 & floss silk padding. "medium pincushion" is 103mm and Tire Silk size 16 & knitting yarn for padding.

7. You can upload as many photo as you like. You can upload several photos of one thimble if you choose to do so.

8. The closing date is 21st of December 2010, Japan time. Please note that we are 9 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) in Japan. You can still upload your photo after the official closing date since I do not close the photo sharing pool, however, I do close the discussion board for entry to the lucky draw.


Now you can start uploading your photos from here.


We are going to have a lucky draw at the end this month, too. One lucky winner will receive the pin cushion of my contribution to this month's photo sharing which shown as above.  To participate in the draw, please leave a message at the discussion board at Flickr under the subject of "Thimbles of December 2010". As stated above, you can upload as many photos as you like however, you can enter the draw only once.  The winner of the draw will be announce here at my blog, not at the Flicker, by the end of the month.

You are going to be busy with the holiday approaching but take sometime for yourself for a few hours and make a small ring and make it a pin cushion, or a tall ring and then you have a beading for necklace.  They are especially good as a stocking filler.  Happy stitching.

Share Your Thimbles November 2010 closed

This month I am prompt and now announcing that this month's "Share Your Thimble" at Flickr is officially closed.  I haven't closed the group at Flickr, but the message board, so you still can upload your photos to show us what you have made.  As a matter of fact, the photo sharing group is never closed.

We have five people who shared their work with us this month:  coral-seas who showed us her very first thimble, Temari Debi with her beautiful blue fins on brown thimble, Dorian E who shared us with her two thimbles this month, not beads, beadtutle with her lovely gold fish big rings, and suryaismail with her yellow and orange bead which she said look like trilobites but far lovelier than ancient creatures.  I would like to thank everyone who visited our group and left comments on our works.  I realize that Flickr has a new function of "recent activity" and we can see when signed in that someone has left a comment on the photo. 

As promised, one lucky winner will get my contribution of thimble to this month's photo sharing.  We  have four entries this month and ...

The winner of November is number 1, coral-seas.  Congratulations, coral-seas, will you please send me an e-mail for your full name and shipping address?  You can find my e-mail address in the profile page.  

Did you know that this was the 12th "Share Your Thimbles" this month?  I started the group in December 2009 and next month is our first anniversary.  I welcome any suggestion to improve the group, especially on how to promote our activities.  The fact that the thimble making is not very popular is a problem, not that people loathes it or anything, they just don't know what they are missing is all, I think. 

*** Shop Update ***

I have listed three of  "First Thimble Kit" at my Etsy store if you are interested.  If you placed your order now, I think they will still arrive in time for Holiday.  As for "Starter Kit with (almost) everything you need",  I appreciate your patience, it will take a little longer before it becomes available.

Can you tell the difference?

Following the previous post, I experimented on the same designed pin cushion bases.  For those of you who didn't read the previous post, one of the instructors from my embroidery course suggested that I might want to consider inserting a smidgen of emerald green in the stripes when I brought  it (the right one in the photo) to the course Here are the results of my experiment:

This is the original one, in solid dark olive and gold, I put the small patch on the photo so that you can see the olive green thread I used.  I like it as it is, maybe a bit too subdued, but I like the colour combination and it looks good, if I may say so myself.

Then,  I used the celadon for the last round of the center square for the second one.  My instructor suggested emerald green and his suggestion in colour choice is always spot-on, however, I thought emerald is a touch too strong a colour, especially when the design requires the thread has to appear not only the square part but all the strips parts, too. 

I regret that I didn't take step by step photo, but it was really an interesting process.  As you can see (or you may not see),  the strips (and squares) are formed from the centre.  After two rounds of dark olive green, the celadon come, and the whole green part appeared as if it was solid emerald green.  Then three rounds of gold and I realized that the whole ring was in the colour of peacock feathers.  It was like a WOW moment.  Then two rounds of dark olive green and it was totally changed again, with dark olive lying side by side with amethyst and it made amethyst deeper, richer.  Another WOW. I wanted to stop there but I had to add another gold, not only for the sake of experiment, but for the completion of the design as it required another round of stitches.  The celadon is subtle but it makes the design more interesting for sure.

The third one, with emerald green.  I am sorry that the photo is a bit blurry.  I was quite happy with the second one with celadon, but I wanted to see what it would be like with emerald green in it.  I was right to think that emerald green would be too strong for this design and that he hadn't understood how the design was formed and emerald green had to appear all the way in the stripes and square.  He is a embroiderer and I think he wanted to add a bit of emerald green here and there, and not like this, although this is the brightest one and I suppose it's not too bad.

I would like to make another one with celadon and without the last round of gold.  It requires a little tweaking of the design, unless I want to replace the gold with the third round of olive green, and I do not.  Perhaps adding a little more gold may be the answer, I have to think about it.

flower basket -- update IV + another pin cushion

The basket itself is finally finished, and so are branches of plum flowers.  So it leaves me no option but to work on chrysanthemums and peonies leaves.  I am not very happy with these leaves as they are now, to be honest, and that's why I have not been very keen on working on them so far.  I can choose to redo them, of course, but I really don't want to.  My instructor told me that they were not bad, that I have just finished the "ground work" so what I needed to do  was to "beautify" them.  I am not really sure about it, though.  He, however, told me that I had better redo one of the daffodil leaves, the longest one on the top, and I quite agree.

Here is another pin cushion, in the (almost) same design but in different colours and size.  Thank you, Lady of the Lock and Laura B. for your kind words on my previously listed pin cushion in pink.  This one still glitters a lot but it doesn't bother me as much as the previous one does, possibly because I just don't like the combination of that particular shade of pink and gold, is all. 

I brought it to the embroidery class to show it off, and the instructor suggested that I might want to insert a little bit of emerald green in the gold and dark green stripes part, so that it would bring the purple brighter.  His suggestion in colours is always reliable so I am making exactly the same one right now but with a row of emerald green, so that I could compare the effect the brighter green is supposed to provide.

on-line advertisement

The web service which offers something free, either blog or social network, or anything, got advertisements.  Do you pay attention to them?

I generally do not.  However, the two advertisements caught my eyes the other day.

One was on-line printing service offering free business cards printing.  I have always wanted nice business cards for my shop so I decided to investigate it.  It turned out that "free" is for the basic grade paper and I still had to pay for the processing fee.  I was not sure if you could still call it free, but I was intrigued enough to look further, and found out that with a small fee I could custom order the cards and look what I got;

The other was for photo books which offered limited time discount.  Naturally, I had a lot of photographs which I should have already dealt with.  So here are my first photo books:

(There are two because the second one was for my companion)



(We had a dim sum making class at the hotel kitchen during our stay)

a make a month November 2010

This is my latest pin cushion base ring, in detail.  I have finished stitching the pin flower (windmill) part months ago but never finished the background until two days ago. 

I used gold thread for Japanese embroidery and perhaps it's a little too glittery, don't you think?

Share Your Thimbles -- November 2010

It's time to start stitching your thimbles again and here is a link to Flickr to share your work with the group.

This is a photo sharing group called "Share Your Thimbles" and if you make Japanese silk thimbles (or any other rings using the same technique, I would love to have you join us.  This is not a contest nor competition and definitely no critics.  Anyone is welcome.

General Rules:

1. The thimbles (or any other rings) have to be your own work.

2. Although the group name says "thimbles", your work is not necessarily a thimble and you can make your rings in any size you would like, as small as a focal bead for the necklace or as big as a bracelet, or even bigger.

3. As stated above, they have to be your own work however, you can use the ring base from the kit if you choose to do so. It may not seem to be fair, considering I sell the kits, however, they are many other kits available (at least in Japan) and some of you may be able to obtain them, and it is definitely not fair to exclude the people brave enough to share their first work with us from the group.

4. Your work has to be done with only forward stitches. No weaving or back stitches at this time.

5. You can use any material, and in any colours, you would like.

6. Please state the size of the mould on which you formed your ring base in the description field of the photo. Please also mention what threads and padding you used, too, so that we could compare notes. In case you bought one of my kits, here are the size and materials: "first thimble" is 50mm in circumference and Tire Silk size 9 & floss silk padding. "small pincushion" is 61mm in circumference and Tire Silk size9 & floss silk padding. "medium pincushion" is 103mm and Tire Silk size 16 & knitting yarn for padding.

7. You can upload as many photo as you like. You can upload several photos of one thimble if you choose to do so.

8. The closing date is 21st of November 2010, Japan time. Please note that we are 9 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) in Japan.  Though you can still upload your photo after the official closing date since I do not close the photo sharing pool.  However I do close the discussion board for entry to the lucky draw.

Now you can start uploading your photos from here.


We are going to have a lucky draw at the end this month, too. One lucky winner will receive the thimble of my contribution to this month's photo sharing which shown as above, one is pink stripes with white fins. In order to enter the draw, please leave a message at the discussion board at Flickr under the subject of "Thimbles of November 2010". As stated above, you can upload as many photos as you like however, you can enter the draw only once.

The winner of the draw will be announce here at my blog, not at the Flicker, by the end of the month. 
For those of you who are not a thimble stitcher or who chose not to join the group this month, you can still participate in the group as we participants of the group would love to have your comments left to the photos uploaded. When you click the photo at Flickr, you will find a dialogue box in which to leave your comment. I (and I believe you, too) would be so excited when someone left me a comment. Please come visit us here.

Flower Basket -- update II or maybe III

It doesn't look like I made a progress since last post but I did; plum branches, which were not shown in the last post, are mostly done  and basket is half way done, I think.  So it leaves only leaves (no pun intended) and a lot of touch up with flowers.  You can see what it was like in June in here and see how much (or how little) progress I made in about half a year :)

Share Your Thimble October 2010

My thanks to those of you who decided to participate the photo sharing this month , those of you who mentioned my photo sharing group at your blog, and those of you who visited the group to admire our works.  We have four participants with 10 thimbles/beads.

We had a lucky draw ...

and the winner is number 2, Temari Debi.  Congratulations, Debi, please contact me for your shipping address (I don't think you moved, just being remodeling but just in case).   By the way, I was able to establish the correspondence with the winner of August's lucky draw, Dorian.

Tomorrow is the first day of the month and I will start another photo sharing.  Start stitching thimbles, shall we?

Flower Basket - update

Still need to work on leaves a lot, but I am now optimistic about finishing it off soon. 

A make a month October 2010

It has been a while since I last participated "a make a month group" at Flickr.  The object of the group is to make a dent in the hoard of materials/books/patterns/etc and share the finished work and/or on-going project with the group monthly.  I have just finished the ruffled scarf and would like to share with you, too, as well as the group.

If you are interested in the group, here is a link to Flickr for you to join or admire other lovely works.  If you are interested in buying one for you (or winter holiday gift), here is a link to my Etsy Shop.  Thank you.

Share Your Thimbles October 2010

It's time to start a new photo sharing at Flickr and everyone is welcome.

General Rules:

1.  The thimbles (or any other rings) have to be your own work.

2.  Although the group name says "thimbles", your work is not necessarily a thimble and you can make your rings in any size you would like, as small as a focal bead for the necklace or as big as a bracelet, or even bigger.


3. As stated above, they have to be your own work however, you can use the ring base from the kit if you choose to do so. It may not seem to be fair, considering I sell the kits, however, they are many other kits available (at least in Japan) and some of you may be able to obtain them, and it is definitely not fair to exclude the people brave enough to share their first work with us from the group.

4. Your work has to be done with only forward stitches. No weaving or back stitches at this time.

5. You can use any material, and in any colours, you would like.

6. Please state the size of the mould on which you formed your ring base in the description field of the photo. Please also mention what threads and padding you used, too, so that we could compare notes. In case you bought one of my kits, here are the size and materials: "first thimble" is 50mm in circumference and Tire Silk size 9 & floss silk padding. "small pincushion" is 61mm in circumference and Tire Silk size9 & floss silk padding. "medium pincushion" is 103mm and Tire Silk size 16 & knitting yarn for padding.

7. You can upload as many photo as you like.  You can upload several photos of one thimble if you choose to do so.

8. The closing date is 21st of October 2010, Japan time. Please note that we are 9 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) in Japan.

Now you can start uploading from here.


We are going to have a lucky draw at the end, too.  One lucky winner will receive the thimble of my contribution to this month's photo sharing which shown as above.  In order to enter the draw, please leave a message at the discussion board at Flickr under the subject of "Thimbles of October 2010".  As stated above, you can upload as many photos as you like however, you can enter the draw only once.

For those of you who are not a thimble stitcher or who chose not to join the group this month, you can still participate in the group as we participants of the group would love to have your comments left to the photos uploaded.  When you click the photo at Flickr, you will find a dialogue box in which to leave your comment.   I (and I believe you, too) would be so excited when someone left me a comment.   Please come visit us at Flickr.

Share Your Thimble -- September 2010

This month we had three participants to my monthly thimble photo sharing group at Flickr.  There were only one participant up until the very last minute and it worried me a lot.  Thank you for those of you who participated and those of you who visited Flickr to admire our works.  I will continue the photo sharing and look forward to seeing your works there next month, too.

As before we had a lucky draw and the lucky winner who got the thimble as a prize is Quiltsummse from Germany.  Quiltsummse, I will contact you about shipping later. 

I have not been contacted by the last month's winner, Dorian E, yet, for shipping information.  Dorian, if you read this, please send me an e-mail at chloe_patricia (at) hotmail (dot) co (dot) jp for shipping information.

Share Your Thimbles September 2010

Are you ready for this month's "share your thimbles"?  You can start uploading your thimbles from here at Flickr.  The rules are the same as before:

1.  The thimbles (or any other rings) have to be your own work.

2.  Although the group name says "thimbles", your work is not necessarily a thimble and you can make your rings in any size you would like, as small as a focal bead for the necklace or as big as a bracelet, or even bigger.

3.  As stated above, they have to be your own work however, you can use the ring base from the kit if you choose to do so.  If may not be fair, considering I sell the kits, however, they are many other kits available (at least in Japan) and some of you may be able to obtain them, and it is definitely not fair to exclude the people from sharing their first work with us.

4.  Your work has to be done with only forward stitches.  No weaving or back stitches at this time.

5.  You can use any material, and in any colours, you would like.

6.  Please state the size of the mould on which you formed your ring base in the description field of the photo. Please also mention what threads and padding you used, too, so that we could compare notes. In case you bought one of my kits, here are the size and materials: "first thimble" is 50mm in circumference and Tire Silk size 9 & floss silk padding. "small pincushion" is 61mm in circumference and Tire Silk size9 & floss silk padding. "medium pincushion" is 103mm and Tire Silk size 16 & knitting yarn for padding.

7.  You can upload as many photo as you like.

8. The closing date is 21st of September 2010, Japan time. Please note that we are 9 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) in Japan.

Now you can start uploading from here.

We are going to have a lucky draw this month, too, at the end and one lucky winner will get the thimble of my contribution to this month's photo sharing, shown above.  In order to enter the draw, please leave a message at discussion board at Flickr under the subject of "thimbles of September 2010".    You can upload as many as you like but you can enter the draw only once.

Let's start stitching the thimble and please come join us here at Flickr. 

** Dear Dorian, you are the winner of the last month's draw.  Please contact me for your shipping address.  My e-mail address is chloe_patricia(at)hotmail(dot)co(dot)jp

flower basket

I have been kind of hibernating during summer months and as predicted I have not worked on the embroidery project during summer but in about a month the autumn course will commence so I have to start threading the needles and work on the on-going project, seriously.

I have made a little progress since June, but not much as you can see, and the peony petals as well as leaves still need a lot of work but it looks rather nicer, if I may say so myself, now that the centre of the flower is done.  I truly hope I would be able to make more progress before the course starts on 30th September.

*** shop update ***

This is just a reminder that tomorrow (Japan time) is the last day before you can shop at the current price at my shop although the new item (24 cards of silk thread) will remain the same price.

Share Your Thimbles 2010 August

This month we had four participants.  I would like thank Laura B. who said she now knew what she was doing, Dorian who participated in two month in a row, Debi who is one of my regulars, and Ludmila from Ukraine who chose to join us again after long absence, and of course all of you who visited Flickr and admired our works.  If you have not visited photo sharing yet, there is a link to Flickr on the right column.

Now, the winner of the lucky draw is Dorian who shared her lovely beads and thimbles with us.   Dorian, will you please send me an e-mail for shipping address, you can find my e-mail address in my profile page. 

Next week I am going to host another photo sharing at Flickr.  Details will follow on 1st of September.  If you make thimbles, or any other rings using the technique, please come join us there.


*** shop update ***

Bad news.....  As you know the currency exchange rate has been fluctuating drastically, in whose favor is depends on whose view point you are standing, but not mine for sure.  A dollar is always a dollar but when you live in a country which medium of circulation is not a dollar, it does not always hold the same value.  It fluctuated nearly 15% since I priced my merchandise and I cannot absorb the loss any more.    Therefore I am forced to reprice everything already listed at my shop with 13-15% increase.  New price will apply from 1st of September, Japan time.  If you are considering purchase,  it's best for you to buy it this month.  It may be a bit too early for thinking about winter holiday shopping, but perhaps you should start a shopping list now.  I am sorry I could not give you much warning about this unfortunate price hike but I hoped the intervention by Japanese government and bank of Japan would have some effect on the situation.

Share Your Thimbles -- August 2010

It's the first of August so you can start uploading your thimbles from here.  My contribution this month is the thimble shown above.  The design is called "blue wave" .  Actually it's just striped bi-coloured scales but almost every designs are variation of bi-coloured scales in one way or the other.

Here are the rules of the photo sharing at Flickr:

1.  The thimbles (or any other rings) have to be your own work. 

2.  Although the group name is "thimbles" your work is not necessarily a thimble and you can make your rings in any size you would like, as small as a focal bead of the necklace or as big as a bracelet, or even bigger if you like.

3.  As stated above, they have to be your own work but you can use a thimble base from the kit if you like.  It may not be fair, especially considering the fact that I sell the kit, but there are many other kits available (at least in Japan) and some of you may be able to obtain them.  I don't see any reason to exclude the people who bravely share their very first work with us. 

4.  Your work have to be done by only forward stitches.  No back stitches or weaving at this time.

5.  You can use any materials, in any colours,  you would like. 

6.  Please state the size of the mould on which you formed your ring base in the description field of the photo.  Please also mention what threads and padding you used, too, so that we could compare notes.  In case you bought one of my kits, here are the size and materials:   "first thimble" is 50mm in circumference and Tire Silk size 9 & floss silk padding.  "small pincushion" is 61mm in circumference and Tire Silk size9 & floss silk padding.  "medium pincushion" is 103mm and Tire Silk size 16 & knitting yarn for padding.

7.  You can upload as many photo as you like.

8.  The closing date is 21st of August 2010, Japan time.  Please note that we are 9 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) in Japan

Now, you can start uploading your photo from here.

We are going to have a lucky draw at the end and one lucky winner will get the thimble of my contribution for this month shown above.  To enter the draw, please leave a comment on the message board at Flickr.  You can upload as many as you like but you can enter the draw only once.

Now, people, let's start stitching and please come join us here.

Share Your Thimbles July 2010 and the lucky winner is ...

This month we had seven participants who shared their thimbles with us and that is a great improvement compared to the last month however, we had two new people, too.  Just great, isn't it?
Before announcing the winner of the lucky draw, I would like to tell you about how I draw the winner firstly.  You have been seeing the strange combined ladder like pictures for months and might have wonder what it was.  It's called "amidakuji" in Japanese and it's a quite popular way to draw when the participants are small enough.  Although I assigned the number from left to right, if the participants are present they can choose who get where, and you can draw for the multiple prizes at one time.

The number was assigned on the top and the prize was set at the bottom.  (we had six people who entered the draw although the total participants of the photo sharing was seven)

Then added the horizontal lines and each person followed the line descending, although sometimes it may involve uphills. 

and the winner of July is number 1, Pat of palsu34 who shared two of her lovely thimbles with us.  Thank you all who participated in the photo sharing this month, and you, too, who visited the Flickr to admire their works.  I am hosting another photo sharing from tomorrow.  I would love to see more people joining us there. 

Keep It Simple - how I make my thimbles

When Debi listed this design for last week's Thimble Thursday of her weekly posting, I just had to make one for myself, too.  Looks very pretty and advanced design yet easy to make.  You can find design interpretation and instructions on Debi's Temari Train of Though, although the current post is about her recent temari (real beauty I might add) so you have to scroll down a bit.

Debi's  instructions are very detailed and easy to follow, but 28 sections with period of 8 sections sounds very intimidating and the design diagram looks rather complicated, especially for the people who are new to thimble making.  So let's simplify it a bit, shall we?

The above is the design diagram, with all the 28 sections with 4 paths.  I forgot to put the numbers beside the arrows but I hope it's clear enough without them.  Debi stitched first path through firstly then proceeded to the third (the second pink one in the picture) but I prefer to stitch the paths alternatively as much as possible so the arrows in pink are placed at the same plane to signify it.  The gist of stitching instruction is stitch the first and third paths alternatively until each sections are filled, then fill the second path, and after that,  fourth path.

Please follow the pink line across the diagram and you will find it makes two rounds before coming back to the starting point.  The design period is 8 sections, but actually second half of the period (4 sections) is simply the second round of the first half, in another word, one row of stitches consists of two rounds and that's why there are only 4 starting points. 

Now, let's remove everything else beside the first path's stitching:

You can now clearly see what you are going to do with the first path.  Are you ready to start stitching?  Before threading your needle, please ask yourself;

"DO I REALLY NEED A 28 SECTIONED MARKING PAPER FOR THIS DESIGN?"

The answer is no.  Please don't think I am out of my mind because of so hot and humid weather down here.  I know what I am talking about.  Let's simplify the diagram further and you will know what I mean;

You see, all you need is a simple 7 sections.  But what about the starting points of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th paths, no markings for them?  You don't need them for this particular design.  You might want to consider this design 7 sections with 4 sub-divisions, instead of 28 sections, each  sub-divisions represent the paths of stitching.  Make sense to you?  If it doesn't, hear me out firstly before giving up, this is not as complicated as I make it sounds.

When you made the second round of stitches of the first path, the threads laying on the thimble body crosses each other and that crossing points are always made in the exact half way of the section, and in this way you will know where to start the third path.  I put the vertical green lines in the diagram above to show where the half way points are, and third path's thread in red, but not finished all the way because it makes the diagram too busy.

Now look at what it looks in real thimble ( I used green thread so that it shows clearly although the diagram remains in pink);

I finished the first row of first path and was going to start the third path.

You can see ( I hope) now what I mean the crossing points show you the halfway point of the section and it's where you start your third path.

I made an initial stitch and was going to make a down stroke stitch.

In this way, you continue stitching until you made all the stitches of the first row of the third paths.

As you see, it's getting easier as you go, because when you start the second round, you have now both the central crossing and the stitch you have already made when you stitched the first round to hlep you to determine where you make a new stitch.

You can always check if the stitch was made at the right place by placing the thread vertically.

Here, I got myself a nice 14 sections with only 7 sections markings

and this is the diagram (with 28 sections) to show what I have done so far.  Now the question is how do I know when to stop stitching for first and third paths.

The answer is the same way when you determined the points where to make the stitches of the third path. 

This is where I had to finish the thread and start the second path.

and in reality...

start stitching the third path until all the remaining space is filled ...

like this and then there is only fourth path to go.

I have finished the thimble, but didn't take a photo of it to show you, mainly because I didn't like the finished colourings of it. 

Although I used the threads crossing points to determine where to end stitching the first and third paths, but if I knew before hand exactly how many stitches I make in one section of 7 sections thimbles, I could have just simply divided the number of the total stitches in one section in four (because of 4 sub-divisions) and didn't need to worry about where to stop.

This is one of the latest thimbles I made and it has 24 sections with 6-section period.  As you guess, I didn't use 24 sectioned marking paper.  I interpreted it as 8 sections with 3 sub-divisions.  As I had to divide a section into 3 sub-divisions, I was not able to use thread crossing points as a guide as I described above.  Instead, I used the "divide the number of the stitches in one section" method.  I (almost) always make 20 stitches when my usual thimble has 8 sections.  So I knew a sub-division had to have seven stitches each and although it made it total 21 stitches instead of my usual 20, it was still an easy adjustment. 

This is why I always encourage you to count your stitches.  Counting is essential to make stripes but solid coloured sections could use your counting stitches, too.

For those of you who wonder how to make the above design, here is an instruction (no diagram, sorry);

1 start stitching as if you are making bi-colourd scales in the same colour for both paths for the diamond shaped part in pale blue until the one third of the section is filled.

2 using four contrasting colours, frame the diamonds by forward stitch for second sub-division, back stitch for third subdivision for both 1st and 2nd paths until all the spaces are filled.

For those of you who are interested in purchaing it, here is a link to my shop. 

The monthly photo sharing at Flickr, "Share Your Thimbles" is still open.  There are only two participants so far.  I look forward to seeing yours, too, there. 

Happy stitching!