of thought

• standard thimble base on 4.5cm form
• Orizuru No9 silk thread in three shades of green
• 8 sections, 2 paths with period of 2

This is the first thimble I have done on my new smaller form. Since it helps to know the number of stitches for designing, I decided to do a simple scales type design and count the number of stitches before doing something more complicated. To make it easier to count I added a dark stripe for every 4th row. Then when I was done I could easily see that there are 18 stitches.

I am finding that some temari designs seem to work nicely using a thimble and others don’t. I think it mostly depends on the rhythm and repetitiveness of the stitching. I do find that these thimbles are plenty sturdy for temari stitching even though they are just a bit of paper and thread. Now I am experimenting with the size of the thimble and the placement on my finger to get a more natural stitching action. I think this smaller size will work better for me than the slightly larger ones I was making on the 5cm form. We’ll see.

No Thimble Thursday again this week although I did manage to get one started. Rather than show you the unfinished thimble, I thought I would share instructions for making a custom size thimble form.

Many people use old chapstick or lipstick containers as the form for their thimbles. You can also find other cylindrical objects to use for a form if you keep your eyes open. I’ve got some old tubes from sewing machine thread, rings from perle cotton balls, even a toilet paper roll (nice for temari stand size). It is easier to find bigger objects than smaller ones. What do you do when those found objects don’t give you the size ring you want? Make your own!

This technique is from the Japanese book Thimbles and Flowery Temari, ISBN 978-4-8377-0308-2. I’ve used it with success for a variety of thimble sized rings. The principle would work for larger size forms as well (like napkin rings or bracelets) but I don’t think it would be practical because you would need a much larger amount of paper to get it strong enough.

The finished form is fairly sturdy but it will wear out. I’ve been using the same 5cm one since I started making thimbles last fall (about 40 thimbles) but it is finally wearing out. I wanted a new one that was slightly smaller. I took photos as I went so I could share the process here.

Materials:

• Scrap paper (I use old printer paper, printed on one side)
• Straight edge
• Scissors or a rotary cutter with mat
• Glue stick
• Pen or Pencil
• Measuring tape (not shown)

1. Cut strips from your scratch paper. I make mine 3 inches wide along the long length of the paper. This will be the length of your form. You can go narrower or wider if you like, but make these cuts even and consistent.

2. Glue the strips into one long strip. Use the glue stick to glue the strips short end to short end so that you have one long strip about 30 inches or so. This will be an appropriate amount for a form around 4.5cm to 5.5cm in circumference. If you want something outside that range adjust your length longer or shorter. My strip was 3 inches wide and about 32 inches long.

3. Measure and mark your desired circumference. Working at the short end of the strip, measure in the distance you want for your circumference. Draw a line across the strip. Make sure it is straight and at a right angle to the long side of the strip. If this line is slanted away from 90 degrees you will end up creating more of a cone shape than a cylinder. This is now the right side of your paper.

My new form will be 4.5cm. Write it on your paper and your new form will be labeled when you are done.

4. Roll up the strip. Working from the non-marked end of the strip right side up so that the line you marked will be on the outside, start rolling the strip into a cylinder. Use a pencil or other small object to start the roll nice and tight.

You can tighten the roll as you go by holding it between your thumb and index finger and pulling on the loose end as shown in the picture. Be sure to roll it so that those ends stay even rather than telescoping out or in. Keeping it snug will help.

Keep wrapping until you are at the end of the strip. If the end of the strip will not go past the line you drew when you roll it all the way you will need to tighten the coil until it does. It is ok if it goes too far.

5. Glue the roll to the right size. Unroll the strip slightly so that the line is flat on the table. Add a section of glue with the glue stick to the roll side of the line.

Rewrap the strip around itself but when you get to the end, line it up carefully with your measured line and glue it in place. Do not worry if the last wrap of the roll seems to be loose; we’ll fix that in the next step after the glue dries.

6. Tighten the roll. Your paper may have unrolled itself a bit to fit the last wrap that you glued in place, but chances are the roll of paper is not as snug as you would like it to be for a solid form. To adjust it, hold the roll between your thumb and finger again. This time rotate the roll one way or the other to adjust the tightness. You will most likely need to unroll it a bit from the center out so that the outer wrap gets nice and snug. The tension of your fingers on the ends of the roll will let you adjust it. Notice how tightly I am holding the roll in the picture above… you can see how my fingertips are white because I am using a little pressure.

That’s it! Now you have a nice custom size form to use for your own thimbles.

Refinements:

I have found that the glue will hold the end down just fine but if you are concerned you could use a strip of tape along the line to secure it. Just be sure not to leave any rough ends sticking up so that you can still slide the thimble on and off the form.

I’ve considered using a slick paper like magazine pages or advertisements so that the thimble would slide on and off of the form easier but I have not tried it yet. You would need to adjust the length of the original strip longer if the slick paper was not as thick as regular printer paper.

I feel like I am living in a Greek Tragedy. Or maybe it is a Comedy; I doubt I will know until the end. Some minor greek gods of time and tasks are toying with me to their great amusement and my distress. Well, distress might be too strong of a word to describe my feeling… bother is probably more accurate.

At any rate these minor deities are sitting up on their hill… (We have no ‘real’ mountains in Wisconsin, so they are probably sitting on a small glacial moraine.) … hurling chores and time manipulations my way so that I have no choice but to jump from one labour to the next, racing the clock. While it feels to me that I must journey on for years before I can find a safe haven (with fewer duties) I know I must persevere. If only I could find some way to lull these demonic responsibilities to sleep, I could slip past and plead for mercy from one who has control over this region.

So, needless to say, Thimble Thursday did not happen this week. Little things like stitching for my own pleasure are not on the list that has been handed to me by the gods.

It is flattering that the gods have taken an interest in my life but I do wish they would just get bored with me and move on to someone else.

(Don’t worry, the god of stress does not seem to have his hand in this little game so I am doing just fine for all that I am busy.)

Here’s the tweaked design for my International Temari Appreciation Day ball:

the blue side

I made a few tweaks to the design: added a red band around the equator before I started the kiku stitching, used the rayon thread twisted for the entire design, tightened up the wrap on the ball (more about that later), changed the marking thread to red, and adjusted the number of rows to bring the two sets of points closer together.

I miss the strong yellow of the last ball but I think this one suits my picture of ‘many flying flags’ better.

About the wrapping… when I made all of my temari with socks in the core they tended to be wrapped fairly firmly. When I shifted to using rice hulls I kindof liked getting them a little more squishy. There is a problem with that though. When you are stitching a design that has a strong pressure in a single direction on the ball (N/S) in this case, it will compress the ball in that direction. With a squishier ball the difference can be quite pronounced as you work, enough that the earlier stitching become looser as the design progresses and there is a measurable difference in circumference around the equator as opposed to around the poles. The solution is pretty simple, when you are going to stitch a one direction design that might compress the ball, wrap your ball firmer.

You can still use a moderate tension on the yard wrap for the core but tighten up a bit when you get to the thread so that the final ball does not squish easily in your hand. Also, when you are stitching, be sure to not pull your stitches too tightly, especially the later ones.

Here’s a few more views of the design:

the green side

Now I have no clue what I will stitch for the blog next. I think I will take a break from design work and stitch something out of a book. Any suggestions?

Another one that almost didn’t happen…

sorry for the crummy lighting... thunderstorm today!

• standard thimble base on 4cm form
• Orizuru No9 silk thread in red and white
• 7 sections, 2 paths with period of 2

Stitch one row at a time on each path. Red on path 1, white on path 2. I used the ‘trick’ that Chloe Patricia recently shared to find the starting place for the second path. If you were not comfortable with that you could mark the halfway sections between the 7 main sections.

You may notice that this one is a bit smaller than the thimbles I usually make. Here’s a couple of pics for scale:

with a 'regular' thimble and a cm tape measure

stacked with a 'regular' thimble just for fun

I use a homemade form for my thimbles and my 5cm one is getting shabby. I need to remake one but I have so little time. So, for this thimble I used a different form that I salvaged from a spool of thread. Instead of a spool it was a nice smooth and sturdy tube, surprisingly, of exactly 4cm circumference.

On of the members of the ThimbleRings group on Yahoo was talking about doing bead sized thimbles and she posted a pretty one on the Share Your Thimbles Flickr group so it got me thinking about beads again. The reason I saved this small tube in the first place was for the potential for making beads.

I did not increase the height from my normal 5cm thimble height (again, strapped for time so use the materials I already have cut). To get a nice barrel bead shape I would probably need to double the height from what it is now (about 1cm) and increase the padding amount across the middle. I would probably want a design that uses a path with a shallower angle so that I get better coverage across the face of the thimble too.

I do think the experiment was a success. Despite the small size that does not fit anywhere but the tip of my pinky finger, it was not really any more difficult to stitch. Dorian’s was 31mm in diameter. I am not sure I want to go smaller than my 40mm, but I’ll probably try at some point. She has a very nice proportion to hers.

About the pattern: I know this design has a specific name but I can’t quite remember it… feather? arrow? was it yubane in Japanese? I’ll have to go digging a bit and see if I can find it or ask Chloe Patricia about it. It is basically stitched the same way that bicolored scales is except for one key difference: the path goes around the ring twice crossing back on itself before getting back to the starting place. It is the multiple times around the thimble that makes it this design rather than scales. For scales designs each path only goes around the ring once to end where it started without crossing itself.