The Value of Hooping Correctly

We are excited to have Eileen Roche, Editor of Designs in Machine Embroidery share this content with you, which was originally posted on Eileen’s Machine Embroidery Blog: 

 

Our friends at Baby Lock have excellent advice for achieving beautiful embroidery on any machine.  As guest bloggers this week, they point out the necessary steps to take get professional results on your embroidery machine. 

 

The Value of Hooping Correctly

Hooping has a huge effect on your embroidery quality. Because of improper hooping, it may look like you were using poorly digitized designs. Fortunately, that is not always the case!

To help you avoid painful outcomes. Here are a few tips:

  1. Launder the fabric you’re going to embroider on. Use the same laundry settings and detergents that you would use on an everyday basis for that item.
  2. Stabilize properly to prevent the fabric from puckering. Use water soluble topping to stop stitches from sinking into fabrics-with a high nap such as towels.
  3. Always use embroidery supplies purchased from a reputable source. Because of their quality, sewing threads for example, are not good for embroidery. Using quality embroidery supplies will keep your embroidery machine happy and healthy for many years!
  4. Change the needle with every new project you start. Because of a bad needle, your machine may miss stitches resulting in a poorly stitched design.

  5. Don’t gamble. Do a test stitch out of the design with exactly the same materials (threads, stabilizers and fabric) you plan on using on the final project. This will help you see if you made good choices with the selection of stabilizers and threads. If possible, use the same thread colors to make sure all of the colors work well together.

 

“In the Hoop” Embroidery – What It Is & When to Use

This term relates to placing the fabric in the hoop for stabilizing during embroidery. “In the hoop” embroidery is usually used whenever you will have little to no problem hooping the fabric. To summarize – if your item is large enough to be hooped, the fabric is not too heavy and the hoop won’t damage the fabric, it is usually easier and better to hoop.

 

“Floating the Fabric” Embroidery – What It Is & When to Use

This term relates to cases when you hoop only the embroidery stabilizer. The main material you want to embroider on is not hooped, but is floated over the hooped backing. Sometimes this can be achieved using temporary spray adhesive or a sticky backed stabilizer. But the result is always the same. The backing is carefully hooped, and the fabric is secured over it.

This method works well for several different fabrics:

  • Small items that cannot be hooped such as collars, cuffs, kids clothes, bags, mug mats, or any other hard to hoop items.
  • Bulky fabrics such as polar fleece, bath towels, fur etc.

Materials that can be damaged or stretched if hooped – like corduroy, velvet, knits, paper, leather or slippery fabrics. Hooping these materials could bruise the fabric leaving a hoop burn on the fabrics.

Thanks for reading!

Reprinted with permission from Eileen's Blog.

 

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