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Old 05-08-2013, 07:00 PM
  #10  
Prism99
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Western Wisconsin
Posts: 12,930
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Well, my thimble is leather rather than rubber and the metal part looks somewhat different from the photo. I haven't found mine online; not sure it is made anymore. In the link below, "B" is the thimble that looks the most like mine, except mine has leather around the finger instead of metal:
http://www.quiltuniversity.com/w/HandQuilting.htm

I bought the McElroy thimble but never learned to use it easily. A lot depends on whether you are more comfortable using the side of your finger, the pad of your finger, or the tip of your finger. I prefer pushing the needle with the tip of my finger, which is why I like the type of thimble I described. I used the same thimble underneath because the ridge does a good job of pushing the quilt sandwich up for the needle.

A common beginner's mistake is to hoop your quilt too tight, like a drum. There should actually be a lot of "give" in the hoop. Roxanne told us to hoop loosely, so we could fit a fist into the center of the hoop. This looseness allows you to manipulate the quilt sandwich up and down so you can "load" the needle with stitches.

Last edited by Prism99; 05-08-2013 at 07:03 PM.
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