The importance of a thimble!!

Another reason I struggled to get started on my “Abiding Garden” appliqué was my thimble.

Several years ago, I performed a thorough search of thimbles and couldn’t find one that would work with my arthritic fingers. I finally decided that my best solution was to make one from elastic athletic bandages. It is not a permanent thimble, but I can normally get two uses out of each one that I make.

But I was finding that the end wasn’t thick enough to stop the needle from penetrating it, especially when I had to stitch through the glue used to prepare the pieces.

Before I could continue sewing, I had to fix this problem.

I had a packet of leather “dot” thimbles, so I tried one of those first….

But, no matter how hard I tried, I kept knocking it off while I was stitching.

Then I decided to merge the two thimible versions. Start off with the leather dot in place, but add athletic tape over it.

I cut two pieces of tape, one shorter and one longer…..

….stretched the shorter one over the top of my finger, encompassing the “dot” as well…..

….and used the longer version to wrap around my finger, holding the first piece of tape in place….

PERFECTION!!

Now, I have NO excuse for not sewing!!