The tailors thimble.

I'm afraid I left out a rather meagre offering last night. Admittedly it was my last chocolate truffle, but still it didn't really require a whole lot of effort on my behalf other than to not eat it.

As a result, the coat isn't looking a whole lot different. The other side of the collar is done now, but the back is still a collection of fraying edges and wisps of escaping wadding. I do think though that redoing the quilting on the upperside of the collar was a good idea. It definitely looks neater for the smaller stitch. 

The elves have started on edgestitching the lapels but haven't really gotten very far. They have lightly sitched about 6mm away from the edge. (You should trim the sea allowances to a little less than this, or at least grade them back as otherwise it is difficult to sew through.) You don't need to worry about being able to see the stitches themselves; after all it's a decorative finish that also serves a purpose. It gives the edge strength. It stops it waffing about, rolling which ever way it feels like. You can force the facing to stay where its suppose to be. You are in control!

Here is a picture of my tailor's thimble. When people think of thimbles, generally they are the closed end kinds. You pop them over your index finger, and it saves the needle from stabbing in your finger, or even more excrutiating, from sliding up your nail.
The tailors thimble is different. You wear it on your middle finger. The hole at the end means that you are easily feel the fabric. Obviously you can't use it like a close thimble as it would kind of defeat the purpose. Instead you bend your finger so it is parallel to the direction of the needle, and the needle end catches in the top surface.

If you ever spend time doing hand sewing on clothes, I full heartily recommend purchasing one. I never set a stitch without one.

Just in case you thougth I'd been lazy in the kitchen, here is a photo of the flatbread that occupied our pasta last night for tea. I say 'flatbread' but actually when I went to the cupboard I found that my bread flour tub was empty so this is actually a kind of cheese scone made with herbs and garlic; even my two year old woffled it down. I'm afraid that I ran out of puff after doing this though, so we just had stewed fruit for pudding...

By the way do you like my new background? I thought rather than using the blogger backgrounds I'd take a snapshot of my airing cupboard which is mainly stuffed with material and wool! Where does everyone else store their stash?