Carolyn Pearce Home Sweet Home workbox 21: assembling the thimble holder

I’m now ready to put together the thimble holder from Carolyn Pearce’s book ‘Home Sweet Home: an embroidered workbox’.

Here are all the pieces I need, including plastic for lacing the pieces onto, and thin wadding.

I hand stitched the sides of the thimble holder into a tube first of all. Carolyn suggested doing this on a sewing machine, but I couldn’t be bothered to get mine out for such a small amount of stitching! It seemed to be strong enough when hand stitched, anyway.

The next bit was a little tricky. Carolyn recommends making the plastic liner into a tube, sticking wadding on it, and then inserting that into the tube of embroidered stripes. I didn’t think that would work with mine, as the measurements have to be really precise, and I was right. I used the method that I had used for the spool holder instead – I rolled the plastic up as tightly as I could and inserted it into the embroidered tube, then let it unfurl. Then I taped it to fix the size. I didn’t bother with wadding, as I felt it would make it too bulky. Even so, I needed to trim the plastic a quarter of an inch off the long side, and 3/8 of an inch off the short side, to make it fit. Once I had done that part, I laced the top and bottom edges of the striped tube together over the plastic.

I laced the base over a circle of plastic, padded with thin wadding.

Then I ladder stitched the base to the tube. My base didn’t quite fit *inside* the tube, as Carolyn’s did in the book, which doesn’t matter as far as it goes, but I think it will make it too tall to fit into its relevant compartment in the finished workbox.

The lining was made from cream cotton. I made a small seam on the short side first.

The base piece has a row of tiny back stitches worked all round the seamline first, in a circle, so that the turned back hem of the side wall can be slipstitched through the back stitches to hold them together. Sounds more complicated than it actually was to do!

The lining was pushed into the thimble holder, and ladder stitched around the top edge to hold it in place.

I covered a piece of thin plastic with the cream silk piece for the underside of the lid, and slipstitched that to the reverse side of the lid.

Then I worked a line of knotted pearl stitch around the edge of the lid, starting at the centre back. As I almost completed the line, I incorporated the top edge of the thimble holder itself for five stitches, to attach the lid, and make a hinge.

Finally, I added an 8mm cloisonne bead to the front, and worked a buttonhole stitch loop to the front edge of the lid, to hold the thimble holder closed.

This is the thimble holder now it is completed – I’m pleased with how this has turned out.

It’s almost a centimetre taller than the measurements Carolyn gives in her book, but it still looks nice  🙂

And a thimble fits neatly inside, which is the main thing.

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