Thimbles and Palm Guards for Hand Stitching
The needle is not what hurts. The thread is.
A thimble for hand stitching leather sounds like the obvious buy, and for a lot of saddle stitchers it turns out to be the wrong one, because on work with the holes already punched the needle slides through without much push and the damage happens on the pull, where waxed thread under tension runs across the side of the little finger like a wire saw over a pipe. Protection has to go where the wear is. That means knowing which part of your hand is taking it, and what you give up when you cover it.
Video: Hand stitch thick English bridle leather, from Marcellino NY Briefcase Maker on YouTube.
Does a saddle stitcher need a thimble at all?
On pre-punched holes, usually not for the push. Almost always for something.
The answer depends on whether the needle makes its own hole. In a leatherworker.net thread on the Osborne 266 sewing palm, a harness maker posting as Les No6 explains it from the trade side. For saddle stitching, the holes are opened first with an awl or a pricker, so the needle is not being driven through solid leather. He keeps a palm for horse collars, where big needles go through leather with no hole made ahead. With small needles, he says, a palm is of no use, and thimbles suit them better.
That matches how I work. On thick bridle I pre-punch and line up every hole, because heavy work will not stitch any other way, and then I sew in the air, the piece held in my hands, two needles passing through the same hole from opposite sides. The Art of Hand Stitching puts the risk in that pass: the needle enters a hole the thread already occupies, and the skill is not to pierce the thread. The tighter the hole, the harder that gets. I covered the punching side of it in punching stitch holes in thick bridle.
So the push is light if the holes are right. The pull is not. Every stitch ends with both hands drawing the thread tight, and that is a load the fingers take on every stitch of every seam.
My opinion: a beginner should buy protection for the pull before buying anything for the push.
What is a sewing palm, and when does it earn its place?
A strap with a steel cup in it, made for driving needles through heavy work.
A sewing palm is what sailmakers and harness makers wear when the needle has to be forced. Drew Frye at Practical Sailor, in a comparison of the stitching awl and the leather palm, describes a concave cup about the size of a penny set into a heavy leather strap across the palm, and calls it “basically an industrial thimble.” You pinch the needle, seat its eye in the cup, and push with the heel of your hand. He says palms come for right and left hands, that a seaming palm is the best all-round choice, and that a new one can be soaked in hot water and molded to your hand, with rough edges filed off.
The tool has barely changed. Hardwick and Sons lists the C.S. Osborne No. 265 sail palm as rawhide with riveted joints and an iron thimble bound in heavy vinyl, about five inches long, in either hand, and calls it good for leather and canvas. Buckleguy describes the Osborne No. 266 in one line: a strong palm with an iron thimble encased in vinyl.
Workers have always made their own, too. Museums Victoria holds a homemade sewing palm used in the 1970s at Simpson’s Gloves in Richmond, a scrap of black leather formed around a wooden cotton reel, its working face worn from pushing needles. Nobody bought that one. Somebody’s hand needed it.
For a briefcase stitcher on pre-punched bridle, a palm is mostly a closing tool, useful at the end of a run or where a needle sticks in a thick join.
Which thimble, for which finger?
Metal for force, leather for feel, and none of them fit everybody.
Mary Corbet, who writes about hand embroidery, gathers the arguments in her Needle ‘n Thread post on thimbles and finger gloves. Her readers find metal thimbles stiff, and one points out that a metal thimble has only one shape, which makes pushing around a corner hard. Leather quilter’s thimbles with an elastic back flex and stay put. Open ring thimbles slide down the finger to wherever the needle actually meets the skin, which is rarely the tip. Latex finger gloves grip and protect but feel odd, run hot, and wear through. Her verdict on those: “The one thing the Finger Glove is, is serviceable.”
Leatherworkers land in the same places. In a thread on avoiding sore fingers, one member wears leather finger cots on the ring and little fingers. Another recommends leather quilter’s thimbles from a fabric store, or sleeves made from scraps and elastic. A member called Pip uses an oval leather thimble over the thumb on a strap and loop, which he says is “easy to put on and off and cheap to replace,” and a short leather tube on the little finger so the thread stops cutting into the knuckle.
Notice how many of those are leather. A leatherworker has the material for a thimble lying in the offcut bin, and a cot cut from thin calf fits the finger it was cut for better than anything in a store.
What protects the little finger from the thread?
Tape, cots or calluses. The thread will choose for you if you don’t.
The thread pull is where the real complaints come from. A leatherworker.net thread titled “hand sewing is killing my fingers” is a list of fixes from people who got tired of it: athletic tape of the kind boxers use, narrow medical tape, band-aids wrapped where the stitches get pulled tight, thin calfskin sleeves on both little fingers, sleeves cut from an old neoprene wetsuit, leather weightlifting gloves with latex gloves underneath. One member wore calfskin sleeves until the skin on his little fingers toughened enough to go without.
The sore-fingers thread adds cut-off leather driving gloves that keep grip on the needle, jeweler’s leather finger guards, and self-adhering wraps, including the thin veterinary wrap sold for dogs and cats. One member there notes that his own little finger has curved from pulling thread tight. That is what happens with no protection at all, written into the bone.
My opinion: tape is the right first answer. It costs almost nothing, it goes exactly where the groove forms, and it comes off when the seam is done. Gloves are the last answer, because a glove puts leather between your fingers and the thread, and the thread is what you need to feel.
Are pliers cheating?
No. They save the needle and the hand, as long as they stay off the thread.
Pliers are the tool nobody admits to and everybody owns. Les No6, in the sewing palm thread, says small pliers or a pricker handle can close off the end of a stitch run instead of a palm. Frye’s Practical Sailor piece says pliers help pull a stuck needle through.
I wax my needles and use pliers to draw them through very thick leather. There is no prize for doing it bare-handed. What the pliers must never do is grab the needle where the thread is doubled through the eye, or touch the thread at all. My opinion: serrated jaws bite into waxed thread the way a pipe wrench chews a soft brass fitting. Grab the shank, pull straight, let go.
Pliers also tell you something. If you need them on every stitch, the holes are too small for the thread or the layers are too thick for the iron, and the fix belongs back at the punching stage, not in your grip. When the thread runs out and the seam needs closing, the backstitch and the burnt ends are another job, which I wrote up in finishing a saddle stitch.
Should you just let the hands toughen?
Calluses are free. They also take their time, and the seam will not wait.
Here is my own bias, stated plain. Stitching is like guitar. You practice until the fingers callus, and the callus becomes part of the instrument. I have watched helpers pick up the saddle stitch motion fast and then lose it, not because the motion was hard but because their fingers hurt and their attention went with the pain. Kevin in the sore-fingers thread says the same thing in fewer words: “your hands toughen up eventually.”
The case for no protection is feel. The real skill in hand stitching is knowing, through the fingers, when a strand has popped inside the layers, before it shows on the outside. The hand stitching page warns that a seam can look good outside while hidden layers hold the problem. Wrap the fingers too thick and that signal goes quiet. My opinion: that is the strongest argument against thimbles on the pulling hand, and I believe it.
It also leaves out what the hands pay. Three layers of the thickest bridle, a gusset, a body panel and a pocket, is hard on the fingers no matter how long you have been at it, and a callus is not armor. A strip of tape on the little finger costs no feel worth worrying about, and a split finger costs the rest of the week. So the honest answer is tape for the pull, bare fingertips for the feel, pliers for the stuck needle, and a palm in the drawer for the day a thick join refuses.
Which means I just argued against protection and then talked myself into three kinds of it. The thread wins that argument most days.
John James Saddlers Harness Blunt Point Needles: A set of blunt-point harness needles, five sizes with five needles of each. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
Mandala Crafts 150D 0.8mm Black Flat Waxed Thread: A flat waxed polyester thread, 0.8 mm, in black, for hand sewing leather. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
Beesworks Yellow Beeswax Bars, 6 oz: Yellow beeswax bars, 6 oz, for waxing thread. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
General Tools Scratch Awl with Hardwood Handle: A scratch awl with a hardwood handle. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A commission may be earned if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you.
Sources
- Practical Sailor, Drew Frye, “Stitching Awl vs. Leather Palm for Sail Repair”: https://www.practical-sailor.com/sails-rigging-deckgear/stitching-awl-vs-leather-palm-for-sail-repair/
- Hardwick and Sons, “C.S. Osborne Sail Palm No. 265”: https://hardwickandsons.com/products/c-s-osborne-sail-palm-no-265
- Buckleguy, “C.S. Osborne 266-RH Sewing Palm, Right Hand”: https://www.buckleguy.com/c-s-osborne-266-rh-sewing-palm-right-hand/
- Museums Victoria Collections, “Sewing Palm (sailor’s thimble)”: https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/248402
- Needle ‘n Thread, Mary Corbet, “Thimbles & Finger Gloves”: https://www.needlenthread.com/2011/02/thimbles-finger-gloves.html
- leatherworker.net, “Osborn 266 sewing palm”: https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/47127-osborn-266-sewing-palm
- leatherworker.net, “How do I avoid sore fingers”: https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/781-how-do-i-avoid-sore-fingers
- leatherworker.net, “Hand sewing is killing my fingers”: https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/28302-hand-sewing-is-killing-my-fingers
- Marcellino NY, The Art of Hand Stitching: https://marcellinony.com/the-art-of-hand-stitching/
You Might Also Like
