While it is, I suppose, possible that Mae West was not talking about crochet when she made this statement about what is worth doing, it is a truth that applies not only to whatever it was Ms. West might have had in mind, but to many modes of crafting, chief among them, crochet.

And while a number of crochet designers build their careers around devising techniques that don’t require piecework and minimize joinings, I am not one of them.

The effects I find the most pleasing and satisfying to produce cannot be achieved in a hurry-up-get-it-done-this-weekend fashion, but require a dedicated and sustained effort on the part of the crafter who must be willing to work at what is considered, in the technological climate of today, a snail’s pace.

The Slow Movement, which champions a pace of life that is less hectic, less frenetic, and more sustainable, attempts to counter the hurly-burly get-it-done-yesterday attitudes that seem to permeate most aspects of modern life, and I found myself having to embrace this ethos as I worked on the last three sugar cookies for my cookieghan project.

Made with a worsted weight yarn, mini pony beads, and a 4.0mm hook, the sugar cookie with sprinkles is a time intensive motif.

To start, the beads need to be strung onto the yarn using a beading needle or (as I did) a dental floss threader. Each cookie used 35 to 50 beads, and the beads were added to the yarn one bead at a time.

From there it is necessary to keep both a count of the stitches as you work your way from the inner to the outer cookie and back again, as well as pay attention to a pleasing placement of the beads that were strung onto the yarn while working the front of the cookie.

Today, as I tentatively embraced that which is slow, I finally finished two of the final three cookies and made substantial progress on the third:

Here is how they looked with all the sugar cookies that came before:

I think one of the reasons summer is my favorite season is that to some degree, the elements force the slowness on us.

As for the cookieghan, it is project to be savored, and that is exactly what I will do.