Hooping It Up!

This week, Kathy has issued a photo challenge for all of the Slow Sunday Stitchers.  She has asked us to show everyone our hoops. When I was in Grade school, one of my favourite gym activities was hula hoops!  We played all kinds of games with them.  Does anyone else remember using hula hoops in gym class?  I wonder if they are still used in gym classes today...  I just looked up hula hoops on Google and found this picture:

The ones we used in gym class did not look like these!  They were all the same dirty white colour--they probably were white when they were new.   I digress...Kathy asked to see our sewing hoops!  Here is my CCS project the last time I showed it on my blog, showing part of my embroidery hoop.

I recently had to replace my embroidery hoop because the wood split at the opening of the hoop where the rivets hold the hardware onto it.  I threw out that hoop and found the one shown above in my collection of hoops. It has the same flimsy hardware on it as the one that broke after many years of use.

A few weeks ago, I found this sturdy embroidery hoop and purchased it for my CCS project.  This morning, I changed my hoop to this one, after being prompted to show my hoops by Kathy.  You can see I made a bit of progress on my picture this week.  I am working on the bird on the lower right. I hope to finish it today and do some more of the snow as well.

The old hoop is on the left.  I'm hoping the new hoop is easy to use--it is a bit heavier than the old one but the hardware tightens better and does not bend under tension like the old one did.

For full disclosure of my hoop collection, I also have this quilting hoop.  I think it belonged to my grandmother at one time.  My aunt gave it to me a few years ago as she was not using it.  I don't do a lot of hand quilting but have used it for the odd project.

I will be linking up with the other slow stitchers at Kathy's blog.