Thimble Making Tips

Thank you for coming back to my blog after so long a leave (again).  I plan to update my blog at least once a month but as you see it has been almost 6 months since my last post and I apologize for it.

It looks like some people mentioned me somewhere on the web and my blog and my Etsy shop have been getting a big attention recently.  I made a big sale (for me) on "Your First Japanese Silk Thimble Making Kit", a trial kit for the people who is new to thimble making.  Unfortunately I cannot sell the kit to the residents of EU countries because of EU customs requirement, Etsy billing system, and Japan Post's shipping system. In addition to it, I can only ship via surface mail, which takes 2-3 months without tracking and because of that I suppose some people may have given up the thimble making and that thought makes me sad as it's not very difficult to make your own thimbles, though it requires a little getting used to it.

I have posted several how-to on this blog and here is links to these posts:

base making

how to stitch - the design I made in this post is not the basic one but you can see step by step photos of how to make stitches here.  

how to make an initial stich

marking paper

how to stitch the basic bi-coloured scales design - design interpretation

I hope above posts will help you start thimble making and if you have questions please do not hesitate to ask.

Let me wish you happy stitching!

Other Variations of Bi-Coloured Scales Design

It has been quite a long time since my last post and it's October now.  I meant to post this sooner, actually I have started this post at the beginning of July but I have been a bit busy..... well, no excuse.  Here is another variation of of bi-coloured scales design.

This is a very simple design with a single colour for both stitching paths and a contrasting colour at the mid-point and last of the section.  However, if you stich as if it's a good old bi-coloured scales design and switch the colour of the thread at the mid-point and switch back to the original one and continue stitching until the section is filled with stiches except for the last row of the stitch for which you switch to the contrasting colour again, your thimble appears like below:

The difference of the designs between top photo and the above design diagram comes from the way the threads layer each other.  When you make a new row of stitches, the thread travels on the thimble body and it layers on the existing thread(s) and form the design.  And so, the contrasting colour at the mid-point does not appear fully as the design of the thimble does in the photo because the latter half of the threads in the original colour lay on the thread of the contrasting colour.

Now I am going to explain how to stitch the thimble in the photo.  Start stitching as usual and stop one stitch before you got to the mid-point and finish the thread.  You have to know how many stitches you make in one section so that you will know when to stop stitching for this design: 
= "total number of the stitches in one section" / 2 - "1 stitch"
In the diagram above, it requires total 20 stitches to fill one section so I made nine stitches. 20 devided by 2 and minus 1 makes 9.

Start a new thread leaving a space for just one stich.

Continue stitching until all are filled with stitches but a tiny space for the last stich.  You are going to make the same number of the stitches for the second half of the section and it automatically give you a space for one stitch.   In the diagram above, I made another nine stitches.  There are four spaces left in two sections (two stitching paths), 2 at the mid-point and another two at the last.  

Start a new thread in the contrasting colour and start stitching for all four spaces and you will get your new thimble now.  You can compare the above diagram with the top one and see in the top diagram the latter half of the blue threads covers the half of the first yellow thread and it makes a big difference on the finished thimble.

Some of you may wonder if you could make the same design by having four stitching paths in the same colour with a contrasting colour for the last stich, instead.  The answer is YES.  Well, sort of, not totally the same but quite similar.

See?  It looks quite similar, but not THE same.  However, it does not much of a difference.  The effect is (almost) the same. 
This is not bi- but quad-coloured scales though all four sections are in the identical colour scheme.  In this way you stich four stitching paths in the same colour and switch the colour just for the last stitch.  It's certainly more easier than stich the design as bi-coloured scales. 

However, stitching as bi-coloured scales and quad-coloured scales have a big difference.  Firstly you only have two working threads at one time for bi-coloured, while four for quad-coloured.  Having four is not a big deal, but how about eight, or perhaps sixteen?

The above diagram is a quad-coloured scales with the technique of stitching the mid- and last stitches lastly.  You can of course stitch this as oct-coloured, I mean, 8 section design period.  The design period is the number of the sections where the thread travels from the top to bottom and then up to the top again.  In this design the tread travels total eight sections, that is, 8 section design period.  I believe I have posted about the design period and design repeat in the past.  Having eight working threads is not very easy to handle especially all are in the same colour because you have to make track of which stitching path you are working with all the time, and more importantly, what you are making is a ring sized object.  Working on the ring sized object with eight threads hanging is NOT easy at all,I can tell you.

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Lastly, I would like to thank you all who bought my "First Thimble Kit" via Etsy.  If you are interested in the kit, there is a link to my Etsy shop on the right column.  I am sorry but at the moment I cannot ship it to EU countries through Etsy due to their new duty declaration system.  If any of you who lives in the EU countries and would like to buy the kit, please kindly contact me.  My profile page has my email address. 

 

Bi-Coloured Scales Design Variations

 

I mean to post at least twice monthly but it has already been more than a month since my last post.  Time flies indeed.

I talked about the monotonous work when making bi-coloured scales design thimbles in my last post and the magic solution is colour variation.  It does not necessarily mean to encourage you to buy new thread in different colours but the colour placement on the designs.

Here is one example.  When you got to the half point of the section when stitching the bi-coloured scales, just switch the colours for one round. 

Then switch back to the original colours and keep going until finished.  It's just one round of stiches but it makes a big difference as shown below.

Or you switch the colours altogether from the halfway point.  Your thimble will look completely different from the bi-coloured scales, as you see below.

Perhaps you may want to try stripes.  Add two stitches in the colour for the second stitching path when stiching the last part of the first path and your thimble will look like this.

Or stripes in both paths and it looks rather different.

From here the design called Blue Wave (Seikaiha, in Japanese) but it's one of the variations of bi-coloured scales.  It's actually bi-coloured scales with stripes.

As before you can make stripes in both stitching paths and ...

Until now I chose the different colours for two stitching paths but if you choose a single colour for both, it looks like this...

I am thinking to assemble a new kit to sell at my Etsy Shop, so that the people who are new to thimble making can still working on the thimbles after "Your First Thimble Kit".  It will be a kit with a few of the finished thimble bases with two round of stitches done, a needle, and threads.  What do you think of the idea?

In any case, please keep counting the number of the stitches in one section and try to make the same number of stitches every time you make thimbles.  It will help you to explore new designs.  The stripes designs above require the exact number of the stitches to make even stripes, though uneven stripes are fun, too.  However, there are designs which have to be exact and I will show them in my next post, hopefully soon. 

This design is called bi-coloured scales, the most basic of the thimbles.  Here are the step by step diagrams to show you how the design is formed as you stitch:

This is the first stitching path of the first row.  You just stich from the top side to bottom and then go up to top again.  The above diagram only has six sections so that it becomes easy for me to draw but it can be eight or ten, or even more, depending on the size of the ring base you use as long as it is even number.

Here, you have stitched the second stitching path of the first row in light blue, in the same way you did the first stitching path.  The light blue thread lies on top of the green thread of the first stitching path.

Then this is for the second row.  You can see the crossing points are forming as you go.

 

The second rows are done.  By the way, the thimble base included in Your First Japanese Silk Thimble Making Kit has two rows of stitches done and you are going to start stitching from the third rows shown below.

This is the third row, both paths are done, and you can see the vertical line forming at the crossing points.

One quarter of the sections are filled with stiches and...

Now a half of the each sections is done.  You can see the forming design.

All the sections are filled with stitches and you have your bi-coloured scale thimble in your hand.

If this is your very first thimble and maybe you are not very happy with the thimble you have just made but it's true that practice makes perfect where thimble making is concerned, or practice makes nicer ones, I should say.  The more you make, the nicer, neater, and more beautiful ones your thimbles become.

I also recommend to use the same materials; the lining fabric, paper for the base,  and marking paper, on the same tube as a mould so that your thimbles are always the same size.  Why?  So that you can count the number of the stiches in one section.  Why should you need to know the number of the stitches in one section?  Because it becomes easier for you when you work with the new designs.

The problem of keeping making bi-coloured thimbles is it's monotonous, though the design is simply beautiful.  My answer to that particular problem is colour variation and I do not mean to encourage you to purchase new threads in different colours, though it would be more fun for you to have a stash of threads.  What I mean is colour placement and I will explain it in my next post.  

a little bit of cheating - this is how I make my thimbles

As announced in my last "how I do" post, I am going to tell you a way to cheat a little so that you can simplify your marking paper. 

The crossing of the threads always happens at the mid-point of two sections.  This is the fact.  When I posted this article, I showed you how to apply this fact to simplify your marking paper, as in 28 sections into simple 7 sections.  Today I am going to show you how to simply your markings of period of eight scales design.  This involves "weaving" so you may not find it simplifying but I will show you how nonetheless.

The weaving is exactly what the name suggests; you weave your thread when stitching.  When you stitch the first path, there is nothing on the thimble body so no crossing of threads at all.  When the second path is stitched, your current thread travels over the thread of the first path and it makes the crossing of the threads and the crossings form the horizontal line on your thimble as you go, to give it a two-scales design.  The weaving is to have the thread travel beneath the existing threads on the thimble body.  How many threads under which your stitching thread travels and where to weave determine the design.
 

This is a design diagram of period of four scales (four-scales) design.  In order to make it easier and simple, I am going to explain how weaving technique helps you with this design. 

According to the design diagram, you are supposed to start stitching from first path in red, then the second in blue, the third in green, and the last in yellow with the marking paper of sixteen sections.

Now, I will show you how to stitch a period of four scales design without having four-section-marked paper. There supposed to be sixteen sections in total for four sets of four sections (period of four).  Instead of having sixteen-section marked paper, I made my marking paper with only eight sections.  Then, stitched the first path, then the third path skipping the second path.

Here is a picture where I finished stitching first (white) and third (green) paths as if I was going to make a two-scales thimble.

Here I was trying to start the second path.  As I told you, the crossing of the threads always appear at the mid-point of the sections, so the start of the second path should be where the tip of the needle appears on the top side in this photo.

Made an initial stitch and was trying to make a downstroke stitch.  Please focus on the light brown thread and green thread.  In the picture, the light brown is placed on the green one and this will not do.  As the light brown is the second path and green the third, light brown should have traveled beneath the green thread.  Now is the time to use weaving technique; making your stitching thread travel beneath the existing threads on the thimble body.

You slide the needle, the other end, where the eys is, firstly beneath the green thread.  Please make sure not to disturb the padding.  By disturbing, I mean try not to pick any padding material.

Pulled the needle through.  I am sorry the picture is not very clear.  I hope you could see the green thread is on top of the light brown one.

This picture shows it better, that light brown travels beneath green, on the other hand please note that the light brown is on the white thread of the first path. 

Here I made all the stitches of the second path in light brown, traveling beneath the green, i.e. woven, which is the third path and on white which is the first path.

Now, it's time to start the fourth path.  Make an initial stitch at the mid-point of the section.  Make sure that the stitch at the bottom in light brown, the crossing of green and white, and your initial stitch stay vertically at the same position.

I used white for the fourth path so it's not very clear to see, but since it's the fourth path, you do not need to weave your stitching thread at all.  The thread of the fourth path travels on top of all the threads.

Here, all done nicely with only an eight-section marking paper. 

In the same way you can make a period of eight scales (32 sections over all) design with an eight-section marking paper.

Started a new path between path 1 and path 2 of the previous four-scales.  I was trying to make eight-scales so the path 2 was to be path 3 and the new path I was creating in the picture was to be path 2.

My current stitching thread was of path 2 of eight paths so it should have had to travel beneath all the other three threads except the first path because the other three were to be 3rd, 5th 7th path respectively.

The needle is passing beneath the green thread of path 5 and ...

path 7 in white.  The last thread on the thimble body in white was of the path 1, so the stitching thread had to travel over it.

Here the down stroke stitch was made.  Please note that the green thread of path 2 travels beneath firstly light brown (path 3), another green (path 5), and white (path 7), but not the last white which is path 1.

Have done whole row of path 2.

Was starting the path 4 ...

In the same way as before, wove only the 5th and 7th paths, as the current thread was of path 4.

The white between light brown and green was my stitching thread of path 4.  It travels beneath the green and first white but travels on the second white, second green, and light brown and the stitch at the bottom was made. 

Path 4 was done.

You now know the drill.  This was start of path 6.

You know what this was now.  The 6th path in green (second green in the picture) only went beneath the white, and on everything else.

Path 6 was done.

The last path at last.  This is my favorite.  Can guess why?

As this was the last path (path 8), no need to weave at all!

Here all done with only eight-section markings but now the thimble had 16 sections.  

Perhaps you may find this rather daunting and not worth trying.  I felt myself while writing this post that it sounded rather tiresome to determine which thread go on or beneath which.  However, once you start stitching, it is not that difficult.  Just need to make sure which path you are stitching, is all and you will know what to do.  After all, you only have to do this for the first row.  From the second row onward, you can stitch from path 1 to path 8, in numerical order.

I would appreciate the feedback from you once you tried this technique.