It's the best of both worlds today - Slow Sunday Stitching meets the Annual American Football Extravaganza! I've got my projects ready so I can keep my hands occupied while I watch that heady mix of gridiron gladiators and commercial advertising (tongue firmly in cheek here).
I do enjoy American football and I'll be rooting for hometown boy Peyton Manning, but the hype and extravagance surrounding the game are just way too over the top for me. On the other hand, the plan to sit and stitch throughout the game is a pretty good one!
I was inspired to try my hand at making spool pin doilies a few weeks ago. Spool pin doilies are fun accessories for antique and vintage sewing machines: they sit at the bottom of the spool pin and help keep the spool of thread from unspooling too fast. Bonnie Hunter posted a pattern contributed by one of her readers (left) and I found another pattern at Rose Prairie Quilts and Farm. I hadn't touched a crochet hook in years, but the technique came back pretty quickly once I started. I used perle cotton, but I thought my crochet hook was a little too large and wanted to try a smaller size hook.
I finally remembered to pick up some smaller crochet hooks when I went to Hancock Fabrics today. Those are 1.60 mm and 1.70 mm hooks! I don't know if this will work, but I'm going to try it. Making the doilies is actually fun - they work up quickly and the crochet motions are very soothing. If anyone knows of any other spool pin doily patterns, please let me know!
Just in case the spool pin doilies are not working out, I have my old hand-stitching stand-by. Yet another quilt binding to hand stitch. This quilt was begun during the Rainbow Scrap Challenge of 2012. More rainbow scrappiness was added in 2013. Once the binding is stitched (and label attached), it will fly off to my sister-in-law. I'll do a complete reveal when the hand stitching is complete.
It makes me very happy to have good reason to link up with Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching today. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else is slow stitching today!
