Hoop Art: The Basics

Nicole Viola Bennett -

In December, I told you about one of the handmade gifts I made at Christmastime– a piece of hoop art— that was inspired by a simple graphic print I found on Pinterest.

Today I wanted to tell you a little bit about how I went from idea to a beautiful piece of self-framed wall art, and how this fun little project can be quite the eco-friendly craft.

Supplies for a Hoop Art Project

  • embroidery hoop (preferably thrifted, found or otherwise acquired free!)
  • 1 piece of fabric/felt large enough to fill hoop and hang over edges about an inch or so around
  • embroidery floss and needle
  • sewing machine and thread (optional)
  • scraps of fabric/felt/lace/ric-rac/yo-yos/etc. for embellishing

If you want to do something hand-drawn or just with fabric and/or embellishments, the above supplies are all you really need. If you”re looking to design something on the computer and then transfer it to your fabric, read on.

You might use a hot glue gun to glue the excess fabric to the inner side of the embroidery hoop when you”re done, or you can just trim the fabric close to the hoop, preferably with pinking shears to avoid fraying.

Transferring Designs to Fabric

To create more elaborate designs, such as the family tree I made for my mom, I simply created my design on the computer. For the tree, I found a stock vector image and then tweaked it in Adobe Illustrator.

Spiele

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For simple text, just find a font you like and type your words in any text or word processing program. Look for simple fonts without serifs that will be easy to embroider.

Print out the design the size you want it to be. Then, you”ll need to transfer the design. My secret weapons are this heavy tracing paper, and this iron-on transfer pen.

You can follow these instructions to use the paper and pen (basically, you just want to make sure you reverse the printed design and trace the back of it, so that when you iron it on to your fabric the letters read the right way).

Then you can go ahead and embroider your design onto the fabric!

Embellish to Your Heart”s Content

After you design your piece of artwork, embellishing is the real fun part. I have a collection of lace that was handed down to me from my husband”s late grandmother, in addition to a container full of fabric scraps, both of which are perfect for pretty-ing up a piece of hoop art.

Take advantage of this opportunity to use what you have and repurpose or upcycle some otherwise unusable fabric or embellishments. The possibilities are endless!

I love that one of the tools, the hoop that holds the fabric while you create the artwork, becomes the frame itself! These little beauties look lovely grouped together on the wall or individually.

If you”re not a sewista (I just made that word up to describe someone who sews) ;), you could always embellish with hot glue, or even just put some pretty fabric in a hoop and hang it up like that! In my living room, I have a two simple hoops of fabric along with a piece of art that I received in a hoop art swap last year.

Hoop Art Resources:

Are you inspired to make some hoop art? What are some other creative uses you”ve seen or thought of for using old embroidery hoops?