More About Thimbles

The sheer volume of scholarship on display at the innocuously named More About Thimbles is worthy of a museum. Created by Magdalena and William Isbister, the site explains how the rise of metal thimbles coincided with the invention of hardened steel in China, how these thimbles were constructed and dimpled (some were drilled, but most were punched), and how some of the most highly regarded techniques in jewelry—from enameling to filigree to repoussé—were used to make these tiny tools extraordinarily beautiful.