The Most Frustrating Project in the World

grrrrr....

Among other things that Mom sent me last year was a large piece of coral-peach colored silk chiffon. It's just the most lovely stuff ever. I have a pattern for a blouse that is probably from the mid 1960's, and I thought it would be perfect for that, what with the ruffles and all. The chiffon is super soft, and the shade of pink is flattering, I was all excited.

Yup. Sheer.

Then I decided the pattern needed fixing. I originally thought I'd be able to use a single layer of fabric, but I didn't like the idea of having all the seams show, because the material isn't just slightly sheer, it is totally transparent. So I thought that I'd use a double layer. So, twice as much cutting.

Then I decided that I don't like the straight ruffles that the pattern came with. I wanted circular ruffles. So, cutting bias shapes. Twice each.

Finally, I decided that if I was going to double layer the material, I might as well get rid of the button front and make it a pull over. That may well have been my only wise decision.

Cutting silk chiffon is a bitch. It wiggles around on the cutting board like a sea salp with palsy. It sticks to itself. It is so fine that it is nearly impossible to pick up. It takes static cling like you wouldn't believe. You have to iron it with extreme caution, or you will cook it to death. And the thing that made me want to wear it the most, the drapey, soft, squishy texture, makes it nearly impossible to be sure that when it's laying down, the grain of the cloth really is straight.

I think this vexed thing has been in pieces on my table since late July or early august, and it is only just now beginning to look like a shirt.

There is one thing that I am still pretty geeked about though. I figured out a method for making the bust darts in 2 layers of this most irritating material.

1. Using a fine, slippery thread, baste down the center line of the dart.

2. With the same kind of thread, baste across the width of the dart, making sure that each stitch is the same length on each side of the dart, as in the picture.

3. Grab both ends of the basting thread and pull it taut.

The description doesn't make a lot of sense, so here is a little video.

Ta Dah!

Everything Old is New Again

 

 
I really am trying to use up my stash of materials. These 3 projects sort of go together because they all had a previous life as other things. I showed you the scooter skirt already, but it's worth mentioning that I made it out of the skirt of a half finished dress Mom abandoned back in the late 60's or so.

Why didn't I just finish the dress? Because it was cut along very similar lines to the pink and white one in the picture below. As you can see, it is a terribly dumpy looking fit on me. Mom is nearly 4 inches shorter than I am, and all of it is torso. The waist line any dress made for Mom cuts me right across my 3rd rib from the bottom. So, no point in making up the dress as it was. The material is too stiff and coarse to make a good blouse, but it's just perfect for a short a-line skirt. I'm very happy with it.

Before...

But then there was still the pink and white dress. It's one of a pair, also from Mom, but made by Great Aunt Gatha. When I was little, Aunt Gatha's sewing was held to be an acme of durable clothing construction. And durable it was- although looking at it now what comes to mind is the bit by some comedian, maybe Jeff Foxworthy, where he was talking about his redneck relatives fixing something with duct tape: If one or two layers will fix it, then 40 or 50 layers will fix the hell out of it. These dresses are obsessively, if startlingly coarsely, assembled. The waistband had a piece of material tacked in as a stay, to which the bodice and skirt were affixed by machine, having first been basted in place with what looks like button hole twist. Both parts were previously gatherd by hand with the same coarse thread. All basting and gathering threads had been left in place. Each seam had been closely but unevenly overcast by hand, and the hem of the skirt as well as the facing of the bodice placket had been whip stitched in very small, closely spaced stitches of rather erratic appearance. The under arm seams hadn't even been clipped so as to allow the side seam to flex without puckering the armpit! Altogether, the construction was rather lumpy.

After!

These two dresses were neither in wearable nor collectable condition by the time they came to me. The shoulders were dry rotted, the collars stained, and there were serious mouse bites in various places. But they were made in the 50's, which means that there is a mile of fabric in the skirt. With a little scootching and fudging, there was exactly enough to cut a hawaiian shirt for David out of it. I have a nice vintage shirt pattern that suits the material perfectly.

The third thing is this wing collar shirt I made for myself. It's the second shirt I've made out of this pair of curtains, the first being a Halloween costume I made for Cynthia. It has the distinction of being made not only out of material from goodwill, but made out of something I actually used for its original purpose for some years. Eventually I moved out of places that had windows you could put normal curtains in, and I remembered that I had actually wanted to make clothing out of them in the first place. It took me a very long time to finish this shirt because I lost interest halfway through, for no reason that I can remember, especially as I am very excited about the finished result. I always thought that tuxedo shirts were the fanciest thing imaginable, and I really wanted one.

The thing that inspired me was the idea to merge the bust darts in the front of the shirt with the seam where the pleated section is inserted. The result is a fit that is very feminine and curvy, but clean and uncluttered the way a man's shirt is. Also, I finally managed to get the proportion of sleeve width, body width, size of arm hole and length of shirt tail worked out so that it looks right and feels comfortable. I feel very luxurious wearing it.

As David said about his pink and white shirt: "Yeah, this is a really good shirt. I feel like a badass wearing it."

Hooray!

  

  
...hooray! My summer vacation starts today! Actually, it started last night with a very silly cocktail with dry ice in it.

Mix equal parts cheap white wine with decent quality sparkling apple juice drink. Add a chunk of dry ice (Chemical substance be shape like sugar cube. Prohibit to eat.) because you have some around, and because it's festive and makes these goofy boobling noises while you drink it. Very refreshing. Also makes you schnockered faster than you meant to be, which is fine because you're on vacation, Bitch!



I also made some more pants last week. Yes, more shorts pretending to be a skirt. The pattern envelope called this a 'scooter skirt', and it has a very hip looking group of young caucasian women in pigtails and knee socks on the front cover. In spite of the illustration depicting some inhumanly elongated beings, the pattern itself required essentially no alteration whatsoever to fit me. Wonder of wonders! I sewed it up in an afternoon.

It is the most comfortable thing imaginable, and the fact that it is shorts, not a skirt, just adds practicality to the whole arrangement.




Above all, it is Thursday in the last full weekend in July, in Portland. The taps begin to flow at 11:30!

Prost!

Go with the mojo

  

Ce n'est pas une jupe

  
Sometimes, I don't feel like making anything. Those are the times when my house gets cleaned. This has not been one of those moments. My house is now slightly destroyed, but today I made some drawer dividers to keep my skivvies organized and a blue fleece top which reminds me of cookie monster, and yesterday I made these pants. I'm not just having a Magritte moment, they really are a pair of shorts.

Here's to you, Mr. Akin

See? Neat, huh? I found the instructions over at this neat lady's blog, and thought they would be really useful. They are super comfy once they're on, but I only had a 4"  zipper rather than a 6" one that would be a more appropriate length, so they are a little hard to get in and out of.

But that's ok! They are navy blue, so maybe I can get away with wearing them to my stupid job, and they look good with knee socks, which I realized I have way too many of when I organized my drawers, and they have pockets.

Also, I did not buy one thing to make all this stuff. Hooray for using up the stash!

I made a skirt

  

  
It is a perfectly normal skirt. There are some things I like about it. I made it very quickly, like in less than a week. That's unusual for a thing I draft a pattern for. It only took about 2/3 of a yard of scrap fabric. It's sorta stylish at the moment.

On the other hand I think it just looks a little stupid. The pleats in the front are very popular right now, and I have never thought they were a good idea. I was right, they are not. They bulge out at the wrong places when you walk. And it is far too short. That's what I get for trying to use up my stash fabrics. 2/3 of a yard is just 2/3 of a yard no matter how you cut it. What I wanted was a practical skirt that I would be able to ride my bike in. Instead I have this trendy little number I feel rather ambivalent about. I don't know if I would want to wear it to the office, and I'm not much of a miniskirt girl the rest of the time.

The most practical thing about this skirt is that I put pockets in the side seams. I think the front pleats are silly, but they do make it possible to keep stuff in the pockets. In the pictures, I'm carrying my wallet & my phone and they don't make the front of the skirt have curious square knobs over my hips.

Over all I am satisfied with it, because instead of abandoning it in disgust when I realized it was not going to turn out as I had envisioned, I finished it up anyway, on the principle that it is better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly.

Wheeeeee Vacation!

But I want to show you some things I made recently before I go kiting off.

Item: octopus shaped dress.

Items: a gaggle of tiny aliens.

First day of vacation breakfast: Fried-egg salads & baguettes for 2.

There are more pictures of these gadgets on my flickr stream.

Later today: Beer Festival!

Hello January...

  

I was craving this the other day. I saw the Barbara's Spoonfuls at the store and remembered that they are surprisingly tasty.

I'm not a breakfast cereal eater most of the time, because I am a bit lactose intolerant (I'm asian, whaddaya want?) and putting soy milk on cereal is altogether less enjoyable than real milk from a cow. Also, at breakfast, I am generally famished to the point of extreme bad temper, and a bowl of cereal is not going to cut it. I want more fat and protein and less sugar than is in most breakfast cereal, even hippy dippy breakfast cereal. Then there's the cost effectiveness, which is minimal. Good breakfast cereal costs a lot. Lots more than bread at any rate, considering the respective number of servings in a box of cereal and a loaf of  homemade bread.

Usually I eat cereal for lunch or dinner. After breakfast, I find that sometimes I don't want  a heavy meal again for the rest of the day, and cereal fits the bill. I make it more food like by putting fruits nuts and yogurt on it. I used to use regular yogurt, but that was before I discovered greek style.

Why do people think that the 3-squares-a-day thing is so important, anyway? It's not like we evolved eating on a schedule. We snarfed whatever we could find at the time we ran into it, and spent the rest of the time goofing around. Like chimpanzees, in fact. Ever see a picture of a wild chimp that looked out of shape? Not that I'd like to live on a chimpanzee's diet, but I sure wouldn't mind living on a chimp's schedule.

Which is to say that January has not proved as restful as I had hoped. I'm sewing a lot, which I enjoy, but which not only takes up time I might use for cooking, it also does not produce a high volume of stuff that is interesting to look at. I realize that a pile of brown paper bags cut into pattern prototypes is not nearly as fascinating to other people as it is to me, but I wanted to take a minute to say that I have not disappeared. Maybe when I get home, I'll show you my lace knitting samplers.

This is not where I am. I have sneaked away. I'll see you later.

What Nerds Worry About

My brother's daughter wanted to be Ahsoka Tano for Halloween. She asked for help, of course I said yes, I had no idea what I was getting into. A week later I ask her about it again, and she shows me this lego mini figure. I think, oh, shit. It has a blue and white head and 3 tentacles, and horn-things to boot.

So I decide that I need some pictures to work from. The search results are pretty predictable. Lotsa pictures from the Clone Wars animated series, lots of fan art. LOTS of internet rule #34 fan art. It isn't that naked lady pictures bother me, I enjoy them, as a matter of fact. I had a discussion with somebody about naked lady pictures a while ago, and the fact that even straight girls like to look at naked lady pictures. Why wouldn't we? Women are inherently better looking than men. Face it guys, the truth is that in the birthday suits department, most of you are just kinda meh. We, on the other hand, are usually worth at least a second look. Plus, dudes without their clothes on are just silly. Women are beautiful. Anecdotal proof? Number of pages before you find a rule 34 pic of Ahsoka: one. Number of pages you have to scroll through before you find a picture of Obi-Wan with his pootiepows flapping in the interstellar breeze? Well, I didn't find any. Not sure I want to. Even if it is Ewan MacGregor.

However, there is something going on here that troubles me. Partly it is the fact that, as I understand it, the character as written is an adolescent. There's something creepy about having a teen (pre-teen?) character depicted in / fan art with Obi-Wan, who has gotta be at least in his late thirties in this cartoon series. And partly because it was so dang hard to find this one image:

Art by This guy

I do realize that the internet is the home of the lowest common denominator, but is it really that hard to imagine a character that is written as a badass growing up to be still a badass? Without having to show ginormous gazongas? Whatinhell do gazongas have to do with badassery anyway? I do love me some gazongas, but the equation of Badass + Female = Gazongas doesn't add up to me. These things are not related.

Now, there are plenty of pictures of Ahsoka kicking ass, and plenty of her depicted as an adult, but they've all got her wearing this silly bandeau top and a mini skirt. Some of them have her wearing rather less. Which admittedly would be more practical for waving a lightsaber around in than a monk suit, but hell, Obi-Wan doesn't wear a speedo and a wife beater does he? Nooooo, he's a jedi, and jedi knights wear a monk suit. This is the only picture I could find where Ahsoka is depicted as an adult, as a jedi knight, wearing jedi robes. And that's not all, because to my eyes, this is clearly a picture of a beautiful woman who is totally ready to kick your ass if you're one of the bad guys.

By this point, I've managed to get a bit heated under the collar of my monk suit over my niece's Halloween costume. And, because Sophia has still got a few years to go before she's 10 years old yet, I'm telling you all about it, because my niece deserves to have a whale of a time being her own badass kid jedi self as long as the world lets her. When Sophia (Or Tesla, or Daille, Dorothy, Agatha, Hyacinth, or tiny little Beatrice) grows up, and asks me for a ridiculous tube top or a metal bikini for Halloween, I will probably make her one. But I swear I will weep with pride if any one of them comes to me and says 'Aunt Buzz, I need a real, badass jedi robe. And maybe some body armor. Can you help me out with that?'

More Goodwill

  

  
Hey lookit what I found! I thought this was a brandy pipe when I first saw it, but it turns out that it's for drinking port. At least, that's what the pictures said when I looked it up online. Who cares? I'll never use it- it's just adorable. It looks like a cross between an elephant and a jellyfish. It's got feet, and a tentacle! Feet + tentacle = totally worth 99 cents.

The other thing I found is this roll of material. It's about a foot wide, and there seems to be quite a lot of it. I'm hoping someone out there can tell me if the cryptic inscriptions say what the fiber content is, or if it's just some crap like a brand name, or 'inspected by inspector blah'. Anybody?

Finally finished projects

 I've been toting around this fabric for years and years. Several months ago, I picked up some patterns at the goodwill bins, and this one looked like it would be nice in this material:


So I made a shirt. It turned out pretty well, and I really liked how easily the material sewed  up.

 

Then, when mom sent out a bunch of her vintage patterns, one of them inspired me to use this material again, to make the dress in the picture above.








Here's the picture of the pattern. I didn't think much of the sleeves given with the pattern, so I chose some different ones, which is fine since the v-neck was what sold me on the idea in the first place.

It took me months to finish it. Partly that was because I ran out of zippers. Then I spent some time dithering about whether I wanted to use orange fabric to make a belt, or piping, or the ridiculous bow on the front. I still might make a belt, but maybe not.

What really hung me up was the fact that halfway through the process, I spent a huge chunk of time sewing buttons, snaps, zippers, bows, hooks and eyes back on a bale of things that mom sent me so that I could decide whether to use them myself (a few), give them to my nieces (rather more), or figure out if any vintage stores will take them (a couple bits). It all added up to a heap of not very interesting looking or sounding things, at the end of which, I found myself wondering what the heck I had been doing with myself for so long that would make me feel as though I'd been fully occupied and yet produce so little apparent result. In fact, there was plenty of result, but it's all invisible, except my shirt and my dress.

More Artifacts: the "Ominous Trunk"

    

  
I haven't given up cooking, by the way. I've been obsessed with cake. I've said that I am not a particularly good baker, and if I had needed to prove that to myself, the last several weeks of  non-success would have done it. It is a trifle demoralizing. I think the nature of my difficulty has to do with the fact that baking is not something you can tinker with while it's cooking. Unlike say, stir-fry, where you can turn the heat up or down, smell it and taste it, and add stuff to make improvements as you go along, once you mix up a cake batter, you're locked in. You put it in the oven and cross your fingers. There is only so much slightly unfortunate cake I can feel good about foisting off onto my relatives.

So I'll show you my toys instead.


This trunk used to have a heap of defunct fountain pens and mechanical pencils in it. The disintegrating pens and things were thrown away eventually, but I kept the trunk to put my barbie doll in.

I think I got the doll for Christmas? Or something? I'm pretty sure I was in seventh grade. It was quite a thing, in our family, to have something so overtly normal. I was really a bit to old to begin playing with things like that, now that I think about it, but I didn't care. In my mind, I had finally acquired the acme of prepubescent feminine social signifiers.

   



I didn't realize how much paraphernalia I had accumulated for this doll until Mom sent me the trunk. I had carefully saved all her accessories, from the  the weensy coathangers, to the little rhinestone necklace she had on when she came out of the of the package. I even saved her shoes!

Damn those are some sexy shoes. I would love to have some twizzler-colored pumps like that.

What really surprised me was the number of things I had made. I remembered the tiny patchwork quilt, but not the obligatory wedding dress that I sewed metallic teal beads on, or the little matching bouquet I made out of tiny bits of nylon knit.

The funny thing is that having it here made me remember the one or two things that didn't survive- there was a pair of white chunky heels, one of which I think split in half, and there was a dress I made out of an old polyester men's shirt. The dress had spaghetti straps, and a tiny navy and white stripe in the material.

 I had forgotten most of the rest of this stuff too, but here it all is. I'm amazed that I sewed most of these things by hand. These aren't the first things I ever made, but they are certainly some of the earliest survivals.

I've been sewing for 25 years.

I made this a while ago

The little pink bowtie, originally uploaded by Chinkypin.

I didn't put up any pictures of it at the time because I hadn't yet handed it over to the guy who asked me to make it, and then I kinda forgot. So here it is. It was a fun little thing, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The bow is less than 4" across, which is bigger than I wanted it to be (it was for a baby), but the customer was satisfied, so that's fine. Lots more pictures on my photostream, including closeups of the little box, which I folded out of a Trader Joe's bag.

Sock Spike

Spike, originally uploaded by Chinkypin.

Now that Susan has actually received this little guy, I can put up some pictures. I'm pretty happy about how he turned out, overall. I'm really not up on my Buffy, and I think the last time I regularly tried to watch the show was before this character was introduced. But now I feel a little peculiar about it, since the request for this went something like "can you make a blah-blah?" and I said "uh, is there pictures? I likes pictures..."

He is made out of a pair of beige socks, sock-monkey style. I got through about half his head of hair by sewing down bits of yarn until I realized that I could just knot it into his scalp like a hooked rug. He's a tad poofy-haired, all the photos I've seen have him kinda slicked up, but oh well. I didn't want his scalp showing. Patchy headed vampires are so not sexy.

The clothing was all made from a slightly altered commercial pattern. The envelope is for some girly thing including bathrobe, pj's, slippers and a party dress. The bathrobe made a great trench coat by cutting a notch in the collar, and by adding a false fly and pockets, the jammies became jeans and a t-shirt. The slipper pattern became boots with the addition of a couple extra bits of pleather.

There are a whole bunch of pictures on my photostream, including a couple of him in semi-completed state.

This is why men do not sew

 

"The Apache Shirt" ?!?   W. T. F.

Ok, let's set aside the 40-odd years since this thing was printed. Let's even set aside, for a moment, as difficult as it is, the fact that this thing just screams GAAAYYYY, and why it is just wrong that gayness should be stigmatized.

That guy looks mortally embarrassed. And he should be. You know why? Because he looks stupid. Because he does not look cool. Who looked cool in 1965? This guy looked cool. Check him out, dude's a badass. He ain't wearin no 'apache' shirt.

Ok, ok, apples and oranges you say. This is a hippy aesthetic we're striving for, not a greaser thing, or whatever this fella has going on. Fine. Look at this guy then. He's not wearing a dopey ass shirt either, because he's a real hippy hanging out at woodstock, and he isn't wearing any shirt at all, son!

Men do not want to look stupid. The options for sewing dude stuff will almost invariably make you look positively imbecillic. This is a damned shame. Lots of things about sewing are manly, even by the most neanderthal, archaic, family-values, poo-smelling standards. Sewing itself requires good hand-eye coordination, and a knack for geometry don't come amiss. It takes stamina. Trust me, once you've spent 4 hours wrestling 2 layers of canvas, 2 layers of fabric and 14 yards each of boning and bone casing through a machine about 150 times, you begin to understand why corsetmaking guilds in the 16th century were exclusively male: upper body strength. (Well, and trade monopolies, but you know.) Traditionally, all tailors were men. But there is much in sewing for the modern man as well! Sewing machines are manly. There are moving parts, greasy pistons, immanent danger of serious bodily harm by electric shock, blunt force and sharp objects moving at astonishing speed. There is engineering history, metallurgy, and industrial design.

And here's the kicker: sewing offers the potential ability for an otherwise unimpressive individual to slay the object of his desire by demonstrating competence on a daily basis.

Gentlemen, start your machines.

Hip-hip Halloween!

Mrs. Darling, originally uploaded by Chinkypin.

Here's the Mrs. Darling outfit I came up with for Cynthia. I was not too thrilled when she said her office theme was Peter Pan this year. Nothing against it, just kinda 'meh'. Especially the part about being Wendy's mom. I looked up a picture of the Disney version of that character and the stupid thing is wearing this utterly wretched lilac gown with a giant white flounce around the neck. Aside from being inappropriately juvenile looking, there is no way I would put a redhead in that color. So I did the best I could. I figure, if you have to be a meh kind of character, at least you can get to look smashing while you do it. Which I think she does, even if i did make the costume myself.

I'm especially proud of the fact that, except for the lace, the main ingredients for this came from goodwill. The top is one of a pair of sheer panels I've been toting around for years, and the skirt is a set of silk blend (!) curtains I paid ten bucks for last week, and ran through the washer & dryer before I read the care label. Good thing I was being uncharacteristically cautious, and set the machine for low heat. The curtains were even lined already, so i didn't have to buy any extra fabric for that!

Once upon a time...

Beer Wench, originally uploaded by Chinkypin.

I worked in a costume shop. I think I made this about 6 or 7 years ago, in one of the first years we carried leg avenue brand costumes. As is usually the case, for the first year or so they made halloween costumes, they put some effort into the quality control and manufacturing. The stuff they came out with was pretty much rental quality, and it was stinkin' cute. They made about the first sexy snow white on the market, and they never really lived up to the standard after that. They lost their creative edge, and the products themselves got really chintzy. I wish I'd kept more of their catalogs, because as time went on the wholesale ad photos were about the only thing about that company that were worthwhile.

This is a knockoff of one of the last things they came up with that hit the balance between sexy and tawdry. The first run of these costumes was well made, nobody else had a similar thing in that color combination, and the packaging looked great, as I recall. We sold dozens. I made this up because I wanted one of those darn things, but I didn't want it quite as short as the ones you buy. It's in really poor shape right now, the pleather belt is disintegrating in the way things made out of plastic frequently do, but I can't bring myself to get rid of it. The trim with little hearts is just so adorable. Sigh.

Wearable muslin up for grabs

That is, a throw-away which is made up in a potentially usable material, just in case it turns out ok. Interior finishing is ugh-leee (it's brown, and pretty raggedy) it has no fastenings (it's pinned together in the front) and it doesn't come with the apron because that isn't really an apron- it's my ironing cloth tied on to give me an idea of what it would look like if it did have an apron. But, it's still sorta cute. Really, if anybody wants to be alice in zombieland or something, it's yours. Dimensions: bust, very low cut and about 32"; waist, about 27"; length of back about 15 or 16", length of skirt, 26". And it has really small armholes- I got treefrog arms. If nobody cares for it, I'm gonna tear it up by the end of the week, cuz there's other stuff I could use the material for.

The ill-fated dress

The ill-fated dress, originally uploaded by Chinkypin.

I made this dress from a pattern dating from, at a guess, the late fifties. For such a simple looking thing, it took me forever to make, and then the fabric was some cheap stuff that I think one of my parents pulled out of the trash back in the early nineties and the red dye bleeds out of those flowers every time I wash it. I swear this thing has bad luck, something happens to it every time I wear it that makes it look worse. I figured I better get a picture of it before it self-destructs.

Originally, I wanted to make a self-fabric belt with a little rhinestone buckle, but now I'm so irritated with the thing I don't think I'll bother. If I ever use this pattern again, I'm going to make it up in some nice, modern fabric, something that wont bleed, sag or stain. Something with a little stretch, too. That below the knee length makes me walk funny, and I'm afraid I'm going to pull the kick pleat out of it before long.

Pardon the crap image quality...

Sailor jeans and halter top, originally uploaded by Chinkypin.

But it is so bloody hot out that I was afraid I would be burnt to a frizzle if I tried to take any photos outdoors. I really just wanted to get some pictures of these things because both items are projects I began and abandoned last year. Last year, damnit! The pants at least are complicated, so I'll let that stand as my excuse, but I have no good reason for not having finished the top before now. I wish I had a better picture of the back of the trousers. I like the way they turned out, even though the pocket welts are a bit uneven. These are really my attempt to find a pair of pants that will conform to the conflicting dress codes of my 2 jobs so that I only have to pack a spare shirt when I have to go to both places in the same day.

Thimbles

Thimbles, originally uploaded by Chinkypin.

I needed some instant gratification last week or so, and made these. I saw some pictures on Burdastyle that had been posted by a japanese lady who makes these traditional asian style thimbles. Hers are much better executed than mine, but these only took me about a morning apiece, and I got it out of my system. I don't really use them, since I don't do any hand sewing if I can help it, but I do enjoy having them around to fiddle with.