Wednesday 8 March 2017

Hoop Hoopla

My latest foray into creating new and exciting items for my Etsy shop is hoopart.  Based on trends in my Instagram feed by other extremely creative embroidery artists and stitchers, it appears to be quite a popular, modern and artistic form of home decor.  So with that in mind I thought it was worth using my own cross stitch designs in wooden hoops on a range of different coloured evenweave fabrics to gauge the effect.  And...I am not disappointed.

I have chronicled the process -

A beautiful grey-swirl evenweave fabric from Sew-it-All was chosen to complement the vivid red colours of the striking Sturt Desert Pea.  The fabric was first machine-edged to prevent fraying whilst stitching and then placed firmly in the hoop before tightening to keep tautly in place.  The relaxing job of stitching the design then began. 

  
Once finished, I used the 'measure twice/three times - cut once' rule (and a good dose of dutch courage!) to cut a 2cm edge around the outside hoop edge which was enough for folding over into the back of the inside of the hoop with a little extra allowed for tucking under.  As I wanted the wrong side of my work to be covered, I devised a method where a piece of wadding was cut to the size of the inside of the hoop as well as a plain black cotton fabric - with an extra 1-1/2cm added all round the circumference.  A tacking stitch was then used around the edge of the black cotton and slightly pulled in to evenly encase the wadding.


It was then just a case of folding the evenweave fabric over the back of the hoop and placing the black encased wadding into the open space, pinning the two fabrics together at close intervals to keep in place (I could've used half a dozen hands here) and then neatly slip-stitching together.  


This is now a stable piece of work and with the addition of complementary narrow black ribbon attached to the screw top, ready for hanging on a wall in an area of the home that needs a little bit of brightening and cheering up.


This is the first hoop in a series yet to be stitched in preparation for the next Hustlin' Womens Markets on April 8 where I will be having another stall.  

Ros 

'Home is the nicest word there is'.  -  Laura Ingalls Wilder


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