Slow Sunday Stitching and a Little Hoop-La!

Happy Sunday, this morning I woke to a loud rumble and louder clap of thunder or maybe it was the rolling thunder that woke me up, either way I greeted Sunday morning to the sound of rain pattering down and warmer weather.

It's been a week of sorting, purging and finding items in my stash of fabric bins.  Years ago I cut out the pieces for a scrappy log cabin quilt and hand stitched the first block.

I had forgotten all about this project and put it in my scraps bin only to find all the strips stacked and waiting to be stitched all these years later.  So I pulled them out of the bin to decide what to do with them.  I had cut all these pieces using scissors and templates for each strip, my preferred way of making a quilt.

I am a long time hand quilter and by the looks of the first block my stitching has the wonkiness I love in hand piecing.  I suppose after I pieced the block I wasn't thrilled with the overall appearance or I  may have not like the colors I don't recall off hand but somewhere in my quilting journal I would have noted the why I put it aside.  I like to think I just became too busy and forgot it.  I am looking at all those strips and trying to decide whether to finish what I started, remove the outer four strips and focus on the blues or cut up all those strips into 2 inch squares (or make them into 1 inch squares for my postage stamp quilt) and sew together one by one.   I'll give it some thought.  I will be posting today over at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching https://kathysquilts.blogspot.ca/2018/01/slow-sunday-stitching-photo-challenge-1.html

Kathy has a project going on to show a photo of our  favorite hoop, I use all types of hoops and have several of the one's in Kathy's photos including the large floor stand hoop which I use when I'm hand quilting.   My all time favorite hand embroidery hoop is the old metal hoops, this one and several others including an oval one I purchased in 1973.

These are some of my wooden hoops in various sizes  and a purple plastic hoops which I don't care for.

These hoops I was introduced to when I took a hand embroidery class in 2015 they are used most of the time for machine embroidery or at least that is what I was told.  I have a love/hate relationship with these. These hoops do keep the fabric taut but those handles are a nuisance and catch the threads every now and then so I am constantly moving the rings around so I don't catch the threads.

This is a metal hoop a friend sent me last year which is painted and has the cork liner in tact.

I bought this heavy wooden hoop at a thrift store while on vacation last year for 50 cents, I haven't

used it yet but I'm sure it would be good for small hand quilting projects or a large embroidery project. Another favorite is the Q-Snap frame

I love the tautness of the fabric in this frame I usually work larger projects in these, I have them in several sizes if the fabric is thin I add strips of scraps to better hold the fabric in place, or as in the photo I fold over the extra fabric. 
Last but not least the piece currently in my hoop is the little sunshine piece I was working on last week, I plan to be stitching this today