Tender Fingers

[sutherland]

Hi Marks Mom, sore fingers or should I say finger [my left forefinger] goes with the job, but will ease up as you get used to needles pricking your forefinger as a hard patch will build up, not all bad news though as you can feel that you have gone through all thicknness of cloth when you feel the stab. I use a tailors thimble [ open top ] thats the way I was trained, but anything that makes life more comfortable great. With a tailors thimble you use a bended finger and push with the nail, if thats any help. Needles again personal, I prefer size 6 or 7 sharps. Enjoy your kiltmaking.

Regards Sutherland.

ps. made by mum, when working at Sulka in londons old bond street in the 70s, work was taken home by Mums [ and me] to be made, then sold in London Paris and New York, made by people not robots.Take it as a compliment .Again enjoy the trip.

[Barb T]

It isn't hard to push a needle through the fabric when you're kiltmaking, and I can't imagine that you would need either a sailmaker's palm or needle pullers. The only thing that would actually be hard to stitch are the leather straps, and you'll punch holes in those.

The thimble is solely to protect your finger. If you stitch 25 pleats with 10 stitches per inch, that's a lot of stitches. Unless you have a really substantial callus, your pushing finger will get very sore. And it's enough stitches that, sooner or later, an ordinary leather thimble will poke through. The ones that I make have a little scrap of metal (roof flashing is what I use) in between two leather layers. That's enough to keep the butt end of the needle from eventually working its way through to your finger after many many stitches. But you don't have to push hard to get the needle through the fabric. And, with a thimble, you can develop one smooth poke-push-pull motion that allows you to stitch quickly.

[Mark's Mom]

Thanks, Barb, I will get a piece of leather and give it a try!