stitch swap: preparing a hoop for hanging

One of the Stitch Swap questions that came up several times is what I meant when I said that pieces should be "prepared for hanging". There are lots of ways to do this, but basically, the idea is to get your embroidery into a state where you can hang the hoop up on a wall.

Depending on how lazy or industrious I'm feeling, my hoops might look like what you see here. But today I'm going to show you one of the fancier versions of framing that I've ever done. This is, after all, for my swap partner and I feel a strange amount of pressure to impress...given that I'm hosting!

Here's how I did mine. To start, I painted my embroidery hoop (it takes a couple coats of craft paint), and then added some sealer. Once it's all dry, I placed my finished embroidery in the hoop, and got to finishing the back.



As you can see, I did my embroidery through the fabric and a layer of batting because I wanted a slightly quilty look. I trimmed the excess fabric, leaving about 1 inch of fabric and batting.



Using a large running stitch, I sewed around the edge, and gathered it in.



From the same fabric as my embroidery, I made a fabric yoyo large enough to cover the opening in the back of the hoop. Had I thought this through, I might have stitched something on this first. Sigh...dear partner, forgive me!



I flipped the yoyo, and whip stitched it in place on the back. It's a little puffy, but it still lays nicely against a wall.



To hang the piece, I added a strip of fabric to the screw to act as a hanger. Now it's ready to mail! Want to see the whole thing? It's hiding here in my Flickr stream.

As I said, there are lots of ways to finish off the frame and back of your work. Here are a few that I've pinned for reference:

Lova Revolutionary.

From Polka and Bloom.

From the Trouble with Crafting.

From Maximum Rabbit Designs. (via Craft)

From Little Lovelies by Allison.

From Wren and Stitchy.

I hope these help to inspire your embroidery hoops, whether you're in this Stitch Swap or just stitching because it's so much fun to do!