Nearly thirty years ago when I taught myself how to quilt, I knew nothing about quilts. My mother sewed but not particularly well. Her biggest hobbies or daily obsessions depending on how one looks at it were cleaning and bridge. Even though she had originally started college with an art scholarship, her interest in any creative activities was virtually non-existent and her taste ran to the ultra-modern in home decor. I flunked the sewing portion of home-ec in 8th grade and I had never even seen a quilt in person when I started making quilts. Consequently some of the language of quilting might as well have been a foreign language.
The guidelines for making a quilt indicated that the binding should be "well stuffed." To me stuffing something meant just that, physically inserting something into an empty or nearly empty cavity, so I patiently added polyfill, not batting, to my first few bindings. They ended up very fat and stiff but I didn't know any better. Most quilt directions, even for quilts described as easy or good for beginners also ended with "Quilt as desired," which provided no guidance at all.
I had never used a thimble. That was still true for some time after I started since I just couldn't adjust to sewing with one. Wearing a thimble out never occurred to me so when that happened the first time I was flabbergasted. How could this be possible?
Today I wore out another one, making approximately a half dozen worn through in thirty years. But I did finish the very involved and elaborate center section of the new quilt. Of course the thimble had seen yeoman use long before this quilt but it is only about three years old. There is no such thing as a forever thimble.
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