Here’s a bit of a niche question for you; Have you ever finished an embroidery, decided you want to frame it in its embroidery hoop but then found the fabric is just too small to finish it nicely?

This happened to me a few weeks ago and as I’m sure I cannot be the only one have this happen I thought I’d show you how I fixed it.

How to extend your fabric so you can frame it properly in an embroidery hoop

I’ve seen people trim fabric off level with the wood around the back of a hoop and glue the fabric in place; that could also be an option but that finish is not for me. I wouldn’t like to trust that it wouldn’t pull away or discolour after some time and after all those hours of stitching I really just feel like my embroidery deserves better and I think yours does too!

I initially planned to just share this on my Instagram and Tik Tok so I filmed each stage. But then it occurred to me that not everyone uses those social medias and actually it would be good to share this fairly easy solution over here on the blog too. You can see the video version here.

Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos as I fixed my “the fabric is too small to frame in this embroidery hoop” dilemma, I only had the filming so I’ve taken screenshots of the original video. The quality isn’t quite as crisp as I would like but I think it’s good enough so you can see the process.

Why might your embroidery fabric be too small?

Good question! 99% of the time you’re not going to have this issue because sensible people plan ahead and cut their fabric to the right size before they start to embroider don’t they?!

I started this embroidery at a workshop so it was the fabric and hoop I was given. I was so busy enjoying learning some new techniques it didn’t even occur to me to ask for bigger fabric.
You might originally plan to use a smaller or different shaped frame or hoop for your embroidery and then change your mind.
You might be new to embroidery and not even thought about how you would finish the back of your work when finished.
You might be embroidering on a small precious piece of fabric and figured you’d “squeeze it out of it somehow”!

Whatever the reason you are in this pickle, don’t worry. It’s not too difficult to sort it out and frame your piece beautifully.

What you need:

A larger piece of fabric, ideally in the same colour as your original piece
A fabric marker pen or tailors chalk
Pins
A sewing machine and thread in a colour that matches the fabric

Then to continue to finish the back of the embroidery nicely you’ll also need:

strong thread
a needle
felt
thread that matches the felt colour

Extending your fabric

Take your embroidery out of its hoop and lay it flat on the table on top of a larger piece of matching fabric.

Pin it all over. Use plenty, wherever you can fit pins in without spoiling your embroidery. You can buy extra fine pins for delicate fabrics, I wouldn’t necessarily rush out to buy special pins unless your embroidery is especially precious and delicate but you might want to. I just tried to select the thinner of my normal pins.

Lay the inner ring of your embroidery hoop over the embroidery in the correct position and mark around the outside of the circle with a fabric marker or tailors chalk.

Remove the ring and stitch around the outside of the marked circle using a wide zig zag stitch.

* This is the time to prepare your felt circle if you are using one, ie before you assemble the hoop again.

Remove all the pins and assemble the embroidery back into the hoop and tighten it as you would normally.

Trim the fabric so there is about 2 inches (5 cm) all the way around. Take a strong thread and knot one end. Then stitch with a large running stitch all around the edge of the fabric making sure you go through both layers of fabric in the spots where you have 2 layers. Pull it tight and cast off securely.

Some people are happy to leave their embroidery hoops like this, no one looks at the back after all do they? Personally though I can’t bear to leave it like that! Not after all my hard work stitching, and especially not if it’s going to be a gift. I just love the neat look you get with a circle of felt *. I’ve written a whole tutorial explaining in much more detail how to neaten the back of your embroidery hoop in this way, just click through to see exactly how to achieve this nice neat finish - How to back an embroidery hoop with felt.

You really can’t see where the edge of the original fabric is and the embroidery is nice and neat and secure in its hoop frame.

You can see from my photos that I also painted my embroidery hoop. I used a black acrylic paint and then gave it a coat of Mod Podge Sparkle which worked really well. Obviously leave the hoop to dry thoroughly before framing your embroidery if you choose to paint it like this.

So there you have it, a fairly easy fix for an admittedly niche problem. But if ever you are in this predicament or have a friend who is you’ll remember this simple solution. I really do believe that the finish you get framing your embroidery with a little extra time and effort is really worth it.

Julie

I’ll be sharing this tutorial over at some of these link ups

You might also be interested in these embroidery ideas:

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