Share Your Thimble May 2010 - lucky winner is ...

Thank you for your patience. We have six participants with 14 thimbles/pin cushions/bracelets in this month. The winner of the lucky draw of Share Your Thimbles May 2010 is Rebbecca from Perth, who shares us with her cute pin cushion. Rebbecca, I am going to mail you your pin cushion the day after tomorrow.


By the way, I am offering a give away, which does not require you to submit your creation to share at Flickr. It is still open to enter and you can find details is in the previous post here.

Happy Pink Saturday 2nd Birthday

It has been nearly a month since I last posted and I would like to thank you all who visited my blog since then, probably wondering why I haven't announced the winner of the "share your thimbles" lucky draw. Well, things kept happening and I got cold and have been in bed for almost a week. I will draw later and will announce the winner soon.

I still do not feel very well but have recovered enough so that I do not want to stay in bed all day. You know, there is a tourist bus called "hop on and hop off", the bus stops at major tourist attractions and the bus tickets are good for a day and you can get on and get off the bus at any stop and as often as you like. I have been like a tourist on the bus. When I felt well enough, I hopped off the bed and do something, like check e-mails or watch TV, and got exhausted quickly and had to hop on to the bed again and slept for awhile, then hopped off the bed again, and got tired again and had to hop on to the bed, and slept for awhile and ...

Now, as the title of this blog post tells you, Pink Saturday is celebrating its 2nd birthday. Beverly of How Sweet The Sound has been hosting Pink Saturday every weekend for 2 years, that is 106 Saturdays, amazing, isn't it? You can find a list of the participants at Beverly's. Although I am not a regular participant, I have decided that I would join this weekend when I was received a notification of the big occasion. It was good that I have already prepared for the occasion considering.


Just before I made above thimble, I got an inspiration, something like double chained design. It turned out that I made a grave miscalculation (again) and I had to improvised to save it. Although this was not what I was originally intended to make, I am quite happy with the result.

And I am offering it for a give away. Please leave a comment on this particular post if you wish to enter the draw, before 4th of June, at 21:00 Japan time, which is 9 hours ahead of GMT(Greenwich Mean Time). I will announce the winner in my next Pink Saturday post on 5th of June, but I would like to notify the winner, too, so I would appreciate it if you could leave your comment in a way so that I can contact with you, like leaving a link to your blog, web page, or profile page which gives me an access to the e-mail address.


Wish you all a happy Pink Saturday!

a trinket box

I have realized that I haven't shown you a trinket box I made last year. Long time readers may remember the embroidery on the lid.

The circle box was made in exactly the same way I make my thimbles, just the bigger, and obviously it has a bottom. My pin cushion ring frames from the old days had a bottom so it was not new to me to stitch a ring with a bottom, however, the size itself gave me a headache once I started stitching. It's 9.5cm in diameter and 4.5cm in height when finished and the thread I used was my usual silk hand sewing size 9, so, it seemed to take forever to finish it.

It was my first trial to make this big a ring (can one still call it a ring even if it has a bottom?) and I should have added more. The triangles (or diamonds?) look in the same size don't they? I didn't want to distort the design by making the ring chubby. Too fat at the middle makes the centre triangles bigger than the top and bottom ones. However, I could have added another layer of cotton batting and still should have been able to avoid that effect, I think.

*** shop update ***

At the moment, my shop looks bare; there are only four items. The shop has been quite successful and I would like to thank you for your purchases and encouragements. However, I think I am now a bit winded. Filling the order takes most of my free time and I do not have much time left to do my own stitching, and more importantly, no time for "beginner's starter kit" I have so wanted to assemble. I have decided to take things slow, not that I close my shop. It's just restocking may take longer, is all. What I put on the shelves will be still ready to ship on the same day you placed an order, or on the following business day, nothing will be changed apart from the shop carrying smaller merchandise. By the way, I have a new product for you here. You will be directed to my shop page. Please have a look and tell me what you think about it.

Pink Thimble for Pink Saturday

There is a group called Pink Saturday hosted by Beverly and although I am not a regular participant I made this thimble in pink for this Saturday. Please visit Beverly's blog from here and you can find a list of the people who posted something pink today.

You may recognize the design as I have made several thimbles and pin cushions but this time I changed the way to place the frames. I used to place it so that it looks like the four petals flowers are sitting on the frames, but this time they are formed around the flower instead. It was not intentional, as a matter of fact, I wanted to form double frames in gold but miscalculated the number of stitches and ended up like this, although I am quite happy with it.

Since I used gold thread, the thimble is not suitable for actual sewing because gold thread is very fragile and easily damaged. I am still a tad sceptical about purely decorative thimbles but I can call them collectibles, can't I?

Share Your Thimbles May 2010

The third of the year has already gone and it's the first of May. I wonder what I have been doing for these four months...

It's the first day of the month, so it's time for "share your thimble" at Flickr.

The rules are the same as before:

1. The ones you are going to upload have to be what you made by yourself. No borrowing the thimbles/rings or photos from somewhere. I am not implying you do such things, but I have to mention this, you understand.

2. You can use ready-made ring bases if you like. I sell the thimble making kits but there are other kits available in Japan and if you happened to obtain one of these, you can use them, too.

3. Your thimbles have to be made using only forward stitches, at this time. No back stitch or weaving.

4. Although the group name is "thimble", you can make your rings in any size you would like.

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 your photo(s). Please also mention what threads and padding you use. If you are going to upload the thimble from my kit, it's 50mm and Fujix size 9 silk thread, padding is floss silk.

7. You can upload as many as you like.

8. The closing date is 21st of May, Japan time. Please note that it's 9 hours ahead of GMT(Greenwich Median Time) in Japan.

9. You can upload your photo(s) from here.

Like last month, we are going to have a lucky draw. If you would like to enter, please leave a message at the discussion board at Flickr after you uploaded your photo(s). Although you can upload as many as you like, you can enter the draw only once. The lucky winner will get the small pin cushion shown above.

I look forward your entry and wish you happy stitching!