Silhouette Embroidery Hoop Tutorial

Hello Friends!

We’re back and we’ve had a such a lovely break! I’ve been pottering in Somerset again with my family and Jenny has been adventuring with hers. We have lots of exciting stuff coming up including the launch of our online etsy shop (at last!) with our first range of products in a few weeks and of course planning for Autumn and Christmas with festive gift making, baking and more!

Back in April this year, I blogged about the loss of my lovely cat. I was struck that my family and I all found ourselves expressing our grief creatively. I made templates from a photo of my late kitty and used them to make 2 silhouette embroidery hoops. They were very well received over on instagram and this spurred me on to make some more and to eventually write this tutorial.

Embroidery hoops are no longer just used to ensure your fabric is taut for embroidery purposes. They can be used to make wall art, stationery holders, mobiles, pincushions, laundry bags and lots more. There are many fab projects out there on various blogs and websites and I often try to keep borrow this book from Jenny which has such lovely projects to try.

For this tutorial, there is a little bit of simple sewing and no embroidery at all. But you can definitely add some embroidery stitches and embellishment to yours if you wish.

What you need is:

Embroidery hoop or hoops. I used a 23cm/9” and a 12.7cm/5” wooden hoop.

Sketch pad/paper and pencil, scissors.

Fabric for the background - I have used some lovely tie-dye fabric that Jenny and I dyed.

Black fabric for the silhouette pussycat image.

Adhesive webbing.

Felt (optional).

Two Crafty Brownies Sewing Essentials

 

What you do is:

Separate your outer from your inner frame by loosening the screw at the top of the embroidery hoop.

Draw around the outside of the inner circle of the hoop onto a piece of paper and cut out. You are going to use this circle to ensure your image is cut to the correct size.

For a symmetrical image, fold the circle in half and draw half of your image onto one half of this circle. Your fold is the middle line. Cut out along your pencil line and open out. If you have drawn a cat, cut off the second tail!

Cut out a piece of fusible webbing larger than your template and place your image on top of the smooth side of the webbing and draw around it. If there is a ‘correct’ way that your image should appear, place your image wrong way round on the webbing and draw around.

Cut out and place rough side down onto the wrong side of the black fabric. Press using a hot dry iron.

Once the fusible webbing image is ironed onto the fabric, cut out and set aside.

Now place your outer embroidery hoop on to the background fabric and for the 23cm hoop measure approximately 6.5cm (about a quarter of the diameter plus 1cm for the width of the frame) at points from the edge of the hoop and mark all the way round onto the fabric. For the 12.7cm hoop, this figure is approximately 4cm. Of course if you are more of a ‘winging it’ kind of person (I’m looking at you Jenny!) do this by eye!

Remove the embroidery hoop and cut out the rough circle that you have marked.

Take the kitty silhouette that you set aside earlier and peel off the fusible webbing from the back of the fabric. This leaves the gluey layer of webbing on the back, which will stick to the background fabric when ironed. You may need to use scissors to score the webbing slightly, leaving a tear which you can use to start peeling it off.

Place right way up onto the circle of fabric. I have placed mine in the centre. Attach by pressing, using a hot, dry iron.

Double thread a needle with matching thread, knotting the ends, leaving a slight tail. Turn the circle of fabric over to the wrong side and turn down the edge by 0.5cm. The needle should be placed from the front to back of the fabric. Sew a running stitch all the way around the circle turning down by 0.5cm as you go. This step is just like making a fabric yoyo. Check out Jenny’s Fabric Yoyo Angel/Christmas Tree decoration post where she makes lots of them! I have illustrated this step using a different colour fabric…….

On the last stitch, ensure that the thread is left loose and coming through to the right side of the fabric. You should have 2 loose ends.

Now place the inner circle of the embroidery hoop centrally onto the wrong side of fabric. Pull the ends of the threads, gathering the circle around the hoop. Check the image on the front as you go to ensure it is where you want it.

When you feel you have pulled it taut enough, tie your ends into a knot to secure and trim threads.

Now place the outer circle around the inner, tightening the top screw to secure them together. Pull the fabric towards the back as you go to ensure it is as taut as possible.

Although I haven’t done so, at this stage you could cut a circular piece of felt to cover the gap at the back of the hoop plus a few extra centimetres overlap and using a running stitch and matching thread, sew to the fabric at the back of the hoop. You could even sew a little label on. This might be a nice finishing touch if you were gifting the hoop to someone special!

Admire your work and hang on your wall!

I got slightly hooked so I have made a few more!

I painted the frame sliver and sewed a bead on as an eye for this blackbird embroidery hoop…..

 I designed a silhouette of a lady with an afro for this hoop. I think she could do with a flower in her hair……...

I also designed a little teapot for this mini hoop and decided to jump on the slogan band wagon for this large hoop .........

And here they all are on my sitting room wall. I love how they look!

Have a hoopy Friday lovelies!

Lucy xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Comments

[Anne Donald]

Welcome back!! This is an excellent tutorial (even if I had to look at all those photos with cats!!) I shall add the idea to my (very long) to-do list. I am so looking forward to seeing your etsy shop!
Have a great weekend, Anne xx

[Kelly]

Love these! They're all great, but that blackbird on the blue material really pops!

I've used hoops to frame cross-stitch or embroidery projects in the past, but always just used the outer hoop to hold the cloth in place (which sometimes left the backside a mess). I like how you used the thread to draw it up like that. So much neater!

Nice to have y'all back here!

[Two Crafty Brownies]

Hi Kelly, thank you soooo much! I really enjoyed making them and I think Im slightly hooked! Glad you like the blackbird too - he was inspired by the blackbirds in my garden. Have a great week, Lucy xxxx

[Meredithe]

What fun!!

[Two Crafty Brownies]

Thanks Anne, lovely to be back although so good to have a break! I now need to catch up on blog reading too! Thanks for your lovely (and funny!) comments. We cant wait for our etsy shop either! Have a great week, Lucy xxxxx

[Two Crafty Brownies]

Thanks Meredithe! Xxxxx