How to Back an Embroidery Hoop
Welcome to my step-by-step guide covering how to back an embroidery hoop.
So, you have finished your embroidery, it looks amazing, all ready for giving as a gift or hanging on the wall.
Hold on a minute, when you turn it over the back looks like this...
... urgh, not so great. Fear not, follow the simple steps below to hide the back of your stitches and make your hoop gifting ready.
How to back an embroidery hoop.
A quick note before we start to say there are many ways to back an embroidery hoop, this is the one I have found works best for me, it gives a nice neat finish and is quick to do.
It is a permanent backing as if you want to use your hoop again you will need to cut the embroidery off with scissors. That said, here we go.
You will need:
- Your finished embroidery
- A hoop
- Hot glue gun
- A square of white felt at least 3cm (1") larger than your hoop
- Coloured card for backing
- Scissors and a pencil
1. Take your pencil and coloured card. Trace the outside of the largest ring of your embroidery hoop.
2. Cut the circle out using scissors and put it to one side until later.
3. Now, start by trimming any excess thread from the back of the hoop. Cut loose ends as short as you can.
4. Place your white felt underneath your finished embroidery.
5. Clamp the layers of felt and embroidery in the hoop, be careful to position the embroidery centrally as this placement is where your embroidery will be permanently fixed.
6. Turn your hoop over and begin to work around the hoop glueing the felt to itself. What I mean by this is adding a drop of glue to the stretched felt inside the hoop (about 1cm from the edge of the hoop) and sticking the free edge of the felt to it. If you know you don't want to use the hoop again you could always glue it to the inside of the hoop instead.
7. Continue working your way around until all the felt is securely glued.
8. Now trim the excess felt away.
9. Now glue the embroidery fabric to the felt in exactly the same way.
10. Trim the excess embroidery fabric away. Things are starting to look neater!
11. Now take your coloured card from earlier, add drops of hot glue to the layer of embroidery fabric that is covering the inner hoop. Before the glue dries, place the card on top and press down firmly.
12. The backed hoop provides the perfect space to add your name, initials or personal message.
And that's it all done, hope you found the information useful!