Share Your Thimbles June 2010

Today is the first day of the sixth month of this year. Time flies, indeed. So, the first day of the month means it's time to start another thimble sharing at Flickr. My contribution to this month's photo sharing is the one shown above. I really hope you would recognize what it is.

Here are the rules:

1. The thimbles/rings/pincushions/bracelets/etc you are going to share with us have to be the ones you yourself made. No borrowing. I do not think any one of you will cheat, but I have to say it here and I hope you understand.

2. Although the name of the group is"thimble", you can make your rings in any size you like, and not necessarily a circle shape either. I have made some oval shaped ones and they turned out just fine.

3. You can use ready-made ring bases if you like. I don't see a valid reason to exclude the very first thimble, just because it was made from the kit.

4. Your thimbles or any other ring shaped objects have to be made using only forward stitches at this time. No back stitches or weaving, please.

5. You can use any materials, in any colours.

6. You have to state the size of the mould on which you formed your thimble/ring bases in the description field of the photo(s). Please also mention what threads and padding material you used, too. If you are going to upload the thimble from the kit I sell, it's 50mm in diameter, silk hand sewing size 9, and floss silk padding.

7. You can upload as many as you like.

8. The closing date is 21st of June, 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 this month, too. In order to enter the draw, please leave a message at discussion board at Flickr after uploaded your photos. You can upload as many photos as you like, but you can only enter once. I am going to draw one lucky winner and she/he is going to get two watermelon thimbles shown above.

Yes, they are watermelons. If you didn't find them look like slices of watermelon, please humor me and just pretend you think they are. They need more work, especially where placement of the seeds is concerned.

Can you tell the difference between the two? The first one shows furrows while the second one shows a trace of distinct vertical lines. I am not sure which I like better. Putting seeds in is tricky. The easiest and neatest way to put seeds is to apply knot stitches or seed stitches. Although I like the "built-in" seeds, I may have to embroider, just to see what it will look like.