A while ago, I discovered the YouTube channel of Bernadette Banner, a lady who sews all kinds of things. She tends to focus on historical clothing that she sews completely by hand, where appropriate. It doesn’t cease to amaze me that I’m able to watch minutes upon minutes of her hand sewing and chatting along, while doing it myself generally drives me nuts. Perhaps it is the way she speaks that just is completely enchanting.
Anyway, she published a video where she answers questions and sews a leather thimble. This had me very interested since I’ve never been able to figure out how to use a thimble to hand sew. It seemed to me that a leather thimble (essentially a little cover over your finger) would be easier to manipulate than a metal one. So I go out my stash of leather leftovers and got to work. It was pretty easy once I figured out how big the pieces needed to be.
I’ve been using the first version (lighter brown) for the past month or so on a English paper pieced hexagon quilt top. The one issue was that it was a little too small, and since the seam is along the middle, I sometimes did hit my finger through the seam. Then I found that you can also buy leather thimbles where the top is a lot smaller than the bottom, so the seam is on top of the finger. So I got back to work and cut out a new one. This one hasn’t been road tested yet, but if it doesn’t work, I still have a stash of leather bits to make a new one. For now though, at the very least partial success!
Wonderful! My leather thimble is about to wear out and I came across your blog while googling for alternate construction methods, since mine has an annoyingly large seam. I just wanted to let you know that all your projects are inspiring me to pick back up my WIP pile!
Thank you! Good luck with your WIPs and a new thimble!