Category: stitch journal

Not the everyday stress kind, but the tension in stitching. I’ve had a few messages recently from stitchers asking what kind of hoop or embroidery frame I use. If you’ve been here a while, you’ll know that I hardly ever use one at all.

I have a variety of frames, from the tubular/modular plastic kind to the traditional round wooden hoops, and I don’t get on with any of them well enough to use them regularly. I also don’t do ‘proper’ formal embroidery very often, the kind that needs stretching and framing. If I did, then I’d have to learn to stitch in a hoop more consistently.

If I do have to use a hoop, I prefer square/rectangular frames like these by Nurge (no affiliation, I just like them):

I prefer these because I never understand why most embroidery hoops are circular when the grain of fabric is square. With a round hoop, there’s always a danger of overstretching the bias into the frame and distorting the fabric.

Here are some of the reasons I don’t like using a hoop, and these of course are my personal preferences, not in any way an instruction not to use a hoop. Most stitchers seem to like them.

1. I don’t like the way you can only see a little section of the work when using a hoop. I like to see the bigger picture throughout. I find it hard to stay connected to the whole cloth when I can only see and handle a bit of it at a time
2. I don’t like the way the fabric is stretched taut (and I know you don’t have to have it drum tight). I prefer to feel the weight of the cloth in my hands as I stitch
3. I don’t like the way the edge of the frame crushes previous stitches when you move on to another area. If you’re working on something very textural or layered, it’s sometimes too bulky to fit in the hoop comfortably
4. Unless you have a hands-free frame on a stand (and they come with their own separate issues, in my experience), you have to reserve one hand for holding the frame and it becomes cumbersome
5. You can’t easily see what’s happening on the back of the work without turning the whole thing upside down

For informal embroidery, or general hand stitching like the daily stitch journal, I find it’s very easy to manage the tension without a hoop. Half the battle is having the right fabric: if your fabric is too lightweight or slippery, then (probably) hello Mr and Mrs Pucker. But then sometimes you might enjoy that effect, where the stitches pull slightly too tight and cause undulating ripples across the surface. If you’re working on medium weight cotton or linen, then it’s fairly easy to maintain an even tension.

Circles are probably the trickiest thing to stitch without a hoop, because it’s very easy to pull the thread fractionally too tight, and that will cause puckering. General good practice is to support the work on a table (sit upright, it’s good for your posture) so that you can hold the bit you’re working on as if your hands were the hoop. The rest of the cloth just relaxes on the table.

If you work slowly, you can check as you go that the fabric isn’t pulling under the stitches. You can use a thumb to press each stitch into the cloth, which also helps to check the tension. I sometimes get irate messages on Instagram saying ‘get your thumb out of the way, I can’t see the stitch’. The thumb is an essential piece of equipment if you don’t use a hoop. With practice, you can feel when the tension is right.

There’s a section on managing the tension in my Intuitive Daily Stitching course, which might be helpful to beginners.

So there we are. How many of you prefer to use a hoop?