I remember a sewing teacher in primary school preaching the benefits
of thimble use - before handing out plastic ones to every child.
Needless to say, most of them didn't last too long. My Mum's silver
thimble has a place in my curio cabinet and sometimes, it does come
out to play! jennellh

On May 7, 4:04*pm, Sandy wrote:
In article
,

*jennellh wrote:
I am looking for a thimble substitute since I have never been able to
hand sew with one! *While stitching down the binding on the yellow
table runner, I managed to puncture a hole through my right index
finger nail - I was using the backside of that nail to push the needle
through the hem and naturally after making the hole, the needle kept
poking through it. *I need more calcium! *When I was doing more hand
sewing, I had an almost-permanent needle callous on my right middle
finger tip that was very useful. *I guess that I am looking for an
finger callous substitute and not a thimble? *Any suggestions??
jennellh

Jennell, I used to hate thimbles, too. Whenever I put one on, I
automatically used a different finger to push the needle. It took me
some time to learn to use that bethimbled finger. G Another problem I
had was that my finger was always too hot inside the thimble -- very
uncomfortable. The solution to that was to get a "tailor's thimble"
which has no top at all. Since I push with the pad of my finger, rather
than the tip, this works well for me. I also discovered that -- once I'd
found the style of thimble that worked for me -- biting the bullet and
getting a sterling thimble was worth the extra cost. Sterling thimbles
seem to adjust to your finger, no matter what the weather! That
eliminates the need to buy a variety of sizes to accommodate the
swelling and shrinking of the finger in different temperatures. Of
course, once I was down to one thimble, I worried about losing it. So I
bought its twin, just in case. Then I bought a chatelaine -- also
sterling -- so as to keep track of whichever one I was using. G

--
Sandy in Henderson, near Las Vegas
sw.foster1 (at) gmail (dot) com (remove/change the obvious)http://www.sandymike.net