Like the crazy commercials from Capital One asking, "What's in you wallet?" I am posing the question, "What's in your sewing box?" Myself I keep only the essentials. This is primarily because my sewing kit is a little butter cookie tin from the Dollar Tree. Not a tremendous amount of extra stuff can go in there. The contents are as follows, thimbles, thumbles, strawberry, finger guards, scissors, needle case, thread heaven, wax and a spool of thread for the project I am currently working on.
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| Meet my sewing box. |
The various thimbles, thumbles and finger protectors shown here are a pared down pile of what had been in the box. I have accumulated a small petting zoo of thimbles and thumbles in my quest to find the right tools for my trade. These are but a few of my current working selection.
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| Thimbles, thumbles, finger and nail protectors. |
My newest creation is a copper plate embedded into a tube of leather sewn to fit my middle finger. Necessity being the mother of invention and all, I am pretty notorious for creating my own thimbles. I will have to write a blog showing off my various creations. This finger guard came into being from the constant wear and tear on my middle fingernail. Chips, grooves, breaks...enough is enough. I have been trying to work on something like this for a while. I am always looking for a way to improve not only my stitch consistency but to maintain my fingernails. This is the 3rd generation of the design. Success at last.
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| Handmade nail protector. |
The brass Clover finger tip thimble has got to be, hands down, my favourite thimble of all the thimbles I have accumulated. I have one from Dritz, but it doesn't have the same feel or fit as the Clover. This style is not only perfect for protection, but it makes it easy to push the needle through the quilting materials. I did have to do a little adjustment in that I added a leather fitting to prevent rubbing and blistering of my finger when I wear this lovely thimble. Due to the way the tines were bent it rubs on my ring finger and I cannot stand to have the edge of it rubbing on the tender skin of my medial joint.
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| Augmented thimble and finger protector. |
This picture shows how the edge rubs against the velcro pad. Funny thing about this pad, I created it from a velcro tie designed for taming cords. A little trimming, a little shaping and viola! It is always a perfect fit as it is completely adjustable.
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| How the finger protector works. |
Meet my
thumble. It's actually a leather coin thimble that I removed the coin, the coin holder, turned inside out, reinforced the stitching and added a little cuff to fit more comfortably on my gigantic thumb. I don't use this thing quite as much as I did when I first needed to make it. Initially, when I began my quilting journey my thumb pad had not yet developed a callous. Raw, sore, miserable, my thumb was in terrible shape, so I decided to scrap out a coin thimble and make my own thumble. I still use it when I am power quilting, working leather or my callous peels off - which it does about once a year or whenever I go longer than about 10 days without quilting. I am currently growing a new thumb callous as mine peeled off first part of January...no fun for me.
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| Leather thumble. |
As you can see when I am all geared up I can quilt the world! Since I started quilting I have noticed that my thumb has become HUGE compared to my under hand. This picture makes my fingers look all short and pudgy, they are actually normal sized - except for my giant thumb. LOL.
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| My Quiltin' Hand. Look at the size of my thumb! |
These are my thumb thimbles. I discovered them at one of my favourite quilt shoppes, this one is in Hastings, Nebraska called the Plum Nelly. It is a combination bead, fiber and quilt shop. A fantastic place.
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| Extra thumbles. |
Meet my snippers. I have no idea where these little scissors came from, I just know that they have been around for years. I hope one day to have my maternal grandma's sewing scissors, but for now they are safe in my mum's type tray on proud display.
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| My trusty little random thread snippers. |
Who could resist such a cute little tin? I couldn't. I put thin, adhesive magnets on both the bottom and top of the tin so my needles would stay in place. I keep a stash of sharps (and dulls) as well as the random embroidery needle for those "you never know" occasions. This little tin is great for stashing extra threads and pieces of things I do not want to lose (like my mind?).
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| Needle case (holds threads too). |
Meet my fuzzy strawberry. This poor thing has been through the wringer. I am not sure how old it is, but I have had it for quite some time. The tomato has long since been pressed into duty in other realms of my sewing life. Mostly to hold my bigger needles and pins. My faithful little strawberry holds my working needles, sharpens my tips and generally hangs around and keeps the other equipment company.
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| The under appreciated strawberry. |
Thread Heaven is heavenly! It's like a weird globule of rubberised silicone. I use my little glob to lube up my thread and it pulls through like a dream. Less tangle, less breakage, which is nice. I used to use beeswax, but since I discovered this stuff, I haven't even picked up my waxcake.
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| Thread Heaven. |
This is my Thimble tin. I keep my extra thimbles, thumbles, spare thread, pins, and whatever else I do not want to see lost in my sewing kit. I had to put a leather band around it to keep the lid from coming off. :)
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| Thimble and Thumble House. |
And last but least, a spool of thread from my current quilting project. The colours, thickness and type may vary, but there is always at least one spool in the tin.
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| The spool for my current project. |
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| All in one box. |
And that, dear readers is my sewing kit.
Peach Out Apricots!
Morg
