Overlapping path thimble ring

I'll be sewing on little flowers today, but before that, I thought I'd put up a short post.  Here's my latest thimble ring (bracelet sizes).  It's the first thimble ring I've done where the path overlaps and goes around the ring twice before ending.  I had it started, partway done and was planning to add it to Chloe Patricia's photo sharing.

Then I learned a valuable lesson about overlapping paths.  The starting point matters.  When the path does not overlap, I can restart a round anywhere on the circle.  It doesn't make a difference.  With an overlapping path, there is a bottom and a top layer.  If I start on the wrong layer, the places where my threads cross looks wrong.

This lesson cost me several hours pulling out and redoing the stitches, and I missed the deadline for the photo sharing.  One of these days, I'll learn not to do my work last minute...

Motif 11: Pair of hearts

I have a copy of 'The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye' by A.S. Byatt. The first story, 'The Glass Coffin', has a certain crafty charm.

In this story, a tailor has adventures and gets the girl. In the end, he misses being a tailor. So, according to the story, 'He ordered to be brought to him the finest silk cloth and brilliant threads, and made for pleasure what he had once needed to make for harsh necessity'.

Silk cloth? Thread? Now that is a proper happy ending! Today I have some silk to show, and that happy ending is tumbling around in my head.



Here's the first bit of silk. It's a pair of tatted hearts, in chunky silk thread. The one on the left is Jon's Mother's Day heart . The one on the right is from Iris Niebach's site. Hmm, looking at it now, it's a bit wonky. I think I'll have to try it again in cotton. They are both technique hearts, one has daisy picots and one has dimple rings.

The next bit of silk is a pair of Japanese thimble rings for Chloe Patricia's monthly photo sharing. I like making thimble rings, but making them with silk thread is positively addictive. Chloe Patricia is working hard to promote this wonderful craft, so if you have the time, please do visit her site and look around.

Random

Today, I just have some random crafty bits. Here's a monthly thimble ring from a few months back. It's stitched in unravelled bunka thread. Bunka is a strange thread to work with. It has kinks from being unravelled, so it pop-pop-pops as pulls through. Very disconcerting, but it works up quickly. Great for crafting when deadlines are looming.


Next are the little lady's pants. She was a bit annoyed because her brother was showing off his 'baju melayu', with 3 pockets in the top, 2 in the pants. She told me she wanted pink pants, WITH POCKETS. Personally, I agree with her. Why don't they put pockets in women's clothing? Anyway, these are the results. My pink tolerance is quite low, so I opted to mix and match.

Everything's pretty

I made this thimble ring last week, just in time for Chloe Patricia's monthly 'Share your thimbles'. I wasn't very happy with the colours (not enough contrast). I showed it to my little guy and told him it wasn't very pretty. He told on "Oh Mak (Mak means Mom in Malay) I think it's pretty. You can make it any way you like, it's still pretty to me!". He's such a sweet heart.



The little guy turned 6 last week. For the past two years I've made him origami to give to his nursery friends. Two years ago, he even had little hand sewn totes as goody bags. This year, he told me he didn't want origami. He wanted normal plastic bags, with chocolates, jellies and sweets.

I was a bit sad, because, well, he's growing so fast, developing his own opinions. Sigh, sometimes we all wish they could be babies forever. I was also relieved. Origami takes time. He still wanted baked goodies though, and we had to negotiate a bit to get the baking down to acceptable levels (60 choc chip muffins and 12 cupcakes). Here's a picture of one of his birthday cupcakes. The silver balls are a compromise too. I hate them, but they are his favourites.

Thimble ring stitching

I was sad that I missed Chloe Patricia's 'Share your thimbles' last month. So this month, I'm starting early. I'm also doing a thimble ring post, just for my own reference.

From her blog post (third picture down), I think Chloe Patricia takes her stitches from the middle to the edge. One of the Japanese books shows how to stitch from the edge to middle.

I tried both ways, but for both methods, I kept turning the ring over and over to get the needle at the correct angle to take a stitch. To avoid tangling and needle pricks, I ended up unthreading and rethreading the needle after every round. This was causing shredded thread and frustration. Threading needles is hard on the eyes.

I really wanted to work out a way to keep my needles threaded between rounds. Here's the method that works for me.

So here's a bangle in progress. It has 6 paths. At this point, 4 paths have been started and I've secured the thread to start the 5th round. You can see the 4 needles stuck in the base fabric and the 5th needle waiting to go.

Here's the first stitch. The needle goes from the edge to the middle (right to left) with the thread under the needle.

Here's the second stitch. The needle goes from the middle to the edge (still right to left) with the thread still under the needle.


So I just go around this way to get a full path. With this method, I just hold the ring vertical with my left had, rotating the ring as I go and always taking my stitches from right to left. I leave my needles threaded and stuck in the base fabric as I stitch.

Here are the 3rd and 4th stitches.


I also found some computer aid to help me do base markings. I use this site to generate graph paper. I set the horizontal grid spacing to the height of my ring. I set the vertical grid spacing to the width of a section. Then print, cut and use.

Thimble rings

My son spotted my bag of thimble rings and asked if he could play with them. He arranged them and counted them and told me there were thirteen. I was surprised. I didn't realize I'd made a full baker's dozen of them.

Before I show mine, let me show the master thimble. I won this in a lucky draw from Chloe Patricia's blog. It almost hurts to look at; the stitching is so fine. I'm using it as motivation whenever I get too sloppy with my stitches.


Here's a super bright one from two months ago.


This is from last month. I think it looks like peacock feathers.


Here are the latest ones. The blue-green one is my current favourite. It's very calm.

Thimble rings

I posted some pictures for Chloe Patricia's 'Share Your Thimbles'. I'm taking a group photo before my kids put them through too much wear and tear. The blue and white one's my favourite. I like the colours and I like the thread. It's DMC rayon floss. It's slippery and tangly, but my local needle work store caries a huge range of colours at a pretty low price. That makes it a winner in my book.

Baby bangle

When I saw this blog I knew I had to make a bracelet for my little lady. She loves accessories. Since she's only three, I worry about sharp metal bits and pointy pieces. I bangle made of paper and thread? Perfect!

My first two attempts went wrong. The base wrap tangled with the thread and the thread itself wouldn't line up. I think the problem is in the material. Your base can't be made out of floppy, glossy junk mail paper, and cotton balls don't work as padding.

I switched to heavy card stock and wooly serger thread and tried again. The bracelet on the left and the ring on top are the result. These went to my daughter. She's bashed them about a lot, so they look rather worse for wear.

My big guy doesn't like to be left out, so he requested a bangle for himself. He even chose the colours. I switched to plastic for the base and made the ones on the right and the bottom. They're holding up better than the paper based ones, and have even survived a few dunkings. I'm looking forward to making more of these in the future, perhaps one for myself next time.