Leather thimble - PEP BB textile.straw.leather.thimble

Right here goes...

I strongly dislike losing feeling in the tips of my finger when sewing so I don't use conventional thimbles but a ring thimble works really well for me.

Now, a ring of thin leather would be very similar to normal sewing and also I wanted the seam to be as flat as possible. Because of this, I decided to use a butt joint.

Using a butt joint instead of a normal lap joint (sorry, woodworking terms!) is considerably more diffcult because you have to prevent gaps opening up, bunching and buckling of the joint and lateral slip of the joined edges. This means that both getting the tension right and the stiches used are important. I could have used a simple whip stitch but this doesn't prevent the lateral movement. All that is to say that the cross stiches are functional as well as pretty!

I made this a little while ago and it has been very useful. I started with a "thumb" from a wrecked work glove and reshaped it to fit my middle finger. I intentionally made the front surface larger than the back, so that there wouldn't be a seam at the side of my finger where I use it to pinch against while sewing. I recently hand stitched a shirt and used it for most parts of that project.

this project moved from the "sewing" list to the "leatherwork" list - requirements did not change

This is my first project made from my home-tanned elk hide! Next time, I won't sew it inside out and flip it. It was SO hard to turn right-side-out!