Mounting In The Hoop

 

At the moment, I rarely frame anything in an actual square frame - I just don't have the space to properly frame all of my Stitchscapes, much as I would like to. For hoops that are intended to be kits and get dragged around for display at shows and events, they are definitely not square framed as it is so much easier to show people in a hoop, plus they can get a sneaky glimpse at the back. 

It's funny how many people get hung up on what the back looks like. Sometimes I can be fairly neat and you can see the image almost on both sides, but I'm not at all concerned about how it looks - I carry threads across, make knots at the start and ends of threads and still get myself into tangles a couple of times. If I put a photo of the back of a piece on Instagram I tend to get at least one comment on how brave I am for putting it out there! 

If I were embroidering a handkerchief or something that you will see the back of regularly then I will change how I work and don't make starting knots and hide all loose ends but for a hoop piece like this, what is the point?

At college I used to have to photocopy the backs of stitched pieces. I would spend ages working on a lovely embroidery or stitched piece of something and tutors would look at it and go ''yes that's nice but, ooo, have you looked at the back of this? Go and photocopy it in different colours or as a negative and see how it changes. It's so much looser than the tightly worked piece on the other side, so much more exciting." I suppose from then on I didn't worry about the back any more - although it didn't stop my work being neat on the front!! I wonder what those tutors would say about what I do now?

Anyway, as I had finished this piece I thought I would try and photograph my process for framing it in the hoop. I do have an actual tutorial on this already, which you can find here (oddly enough, made using the Mini Woollydale piece!) , but it doesn't hurt to go over it again. 

So, if you are framing in a hoop, firstly consider whether you are going to leave the back exposed or if you are going to neaten it and hide with a circle of felt (great for gifts or pieces where you might hang it so both sides are exposed - in a window or on a tree). 

If you are wanting to add a felt piece, before you set your work in the hoop properly, just pop out the inner hoop and draw around the inside of it onto your felt to get the exact size needed, then set your work back between the hoops, pulling and tightening all around in a circle until there are no bubbles at the edges of your fabric and it is really tight. 

If you've left enough backing fabric to do so, cut a circle around the hoop, about two inches all of the way around - if you haven't left enough fabric you might just want to round off the corners and remove any straggles of frayed edges. 

Securely knot a long piece of thread to the backing fabric, about a centimetre from the edge (sorry, I switch from inches and centimetres, does anyone else?). Here I am using a single strand of Coats Duet Polyester thread but you can use any thread really as long as it's fairly strong. If you are worried about the thread strength you can double up but be careful of any twists and tangles when you pull it later on.

Start making little running stitches all around the edge, keeping them as even as you can and an even distance from the fabric edge (whether you have a circle cut or not). 

 

I tend to make a few running stitches on the needle at once and then pull them all through, it goes much quicker and you can get into a rhythm with it - just be careful again here if you have doubled up on thread that both sides pull through evenly. 

Once you are back at your initial knot, the best side to pop your needle out on is the opposite side to where you are looking (as pictured). The fabric is going to pull into the centre so if you leave your thread coming out towards the back of your work you won't be able to knot it. (But don't knot it yet!)

Carefully pull your thread so that the fabric bunches up and draws in towards the centre. To help avoid the thread snapping, keep moving your hand to grasp the thread nearer to the fabric as it comes out so that you are not yanking a long strand from above your head! You might find that you need to move some of the fabric along the thread to help pull more. 

Once all of the thread is pulled and tight, try to keep the tension whilst you make some secure knots by passing the needle through a couple of strands of fabric to create a loop of thread, then passing through the loop. To help me keep the tension I will pinch the fabric and thread where it emerges from the fabric. 

You'll have noticed that I've only made running stitches around the backing fabric and not the fabric strips that I've used, and that's because I make two passes round the hoop. It is easier to work with the fabric layers independtly because you can take care to fold them over each other, trapping any trimmings underneath them and just making it as neat as possible, which you can't do when you've got the backing fabric all stitched up in there as well. So, once you've tied off your first knot, keep the same thread and just make a stitch under the fabric from your last knot, nearer to the hoop edge. 

Again start to make the running stitches, on the backing fabric if that's all that is there, but when you reach the first section of cotton fabric, fold this over and stitch through both layers. 

As you reach the next layer, fold this over and stitch through all layers, keep working around catching all layers one at a time, stitch through or over any trimmings as you come across them. You might find that your stitch here can't be so neat around the edge and you might need to move closer to the edge to catch fabric layers where they are shorter which is fine. 

When you've gone through all of the fabrics on one side, continue the tacking stitches on the backing fabric again as you will still need a continual circle of running stitches. 

Once you've gone all of the way around, again pull the thread as tight as you can, tension pinch and knot tightly. Now you can cut the thread! 

I like to go round and snip any larger bits of fabric so that they are shortened to a neatish circle between the two rows of stitching, and if you have any trimmings which you just couldn't work into the running stitches, these could be stitched down independently. 

So there you go!! Nice and neat. If you are going to be stitching a felt circle to the back, you can use blanket stitch or whip stitch (just catch a few strands of the backing fabric and the felt edge in one stitch, pull through, repeat all of the way around) to secure it to the back. 

There are other ways to frame in the hoop, but this I find the most effective, and if you want to change it later on, you can just cut those running stitches to remove the piece from the hoop which is super handy as I've done that a couple of times when ideas changed!. 

Circular Squares

Fishie Fishie Fishie Fishes!! Don't you just love fish tanks? Especially when they are full of fish that glow like they are lit within, that dart around and catch the light. I spent about an hour earlier this afternoon sitting next to this tank, watching the fish (and the crabs!) whilst working on a slightly different crochet project.

I took a little (small, minute, miniature) break from hexagons today to teach one of my friends, Vicky, a: how to crochet and b: how to crochet circles into a square. It was inspired by her need to make a blanket that was originally spied on the wonderful Pinterest, as a present for one of her friends who is having a baby.

The blanket above is the one that she saw, and is called Retro Circles. It was made by Adele of the brilliant 3 Beans In A Pod blog, and her making process (not the tutorial) can be found here. At the time of originally posting about this blanket, she hadn't written a tutorial, although has since very kindly written one up for everybody, which can be found here. UK people, be aware that this is written in US terms so you will need to translate the stitches.

Before Adele wrote her own tutorial, she referenced eager readers to another blog called Little Tin Bird, written by Heather, who has her own tutorial for the very similar Bullseye Square, the tutorial for which can be found here (and is pictured below).

Both of them reasonably similar looking and with the same principle of turning a circle into a square but made completely differently!! We tried both of these tutorials earlier to see which one was the easiest and most favourite to work with. Vicky eventually decided to use Adele's pattern because of the swirly line that is created by stitching each round out of the back loop of the previous round.

One of the things I noticed from playing with these patterns is that they start off very similarly to my hexagons (it always has to be relate-able right? I am sleeping and breathing these shapes at the moment!), which inspired me to have my own play at making a circle to square pattern. I have come up with this....

It starts out the same as a hexagon shape would, so using the beginning of the Attic 24 hexagon pattern (found here), but rather than having the chain stitch round to begin hexagon shaping, it continues on with an extra circular round and then changes colour to begin the different stitch sizes which will square up those edges, followed by an extra round of trebles to make absolutely sure that it is a square.
I am quite chuffed with this little square, and whilst it will have to go on a back burner until the block colour hexagon blanket is finished, I have written my own full picture tutorial, found in the usual place on the right hand side of the screen or by clicking the link below, so that you can have your own go at my pattern should you wish to and so that I can remember what I did when it is my turn to continue it- for now I shall keep my first little square in a very safe place.

For my Circular Square Crochet Pattern Tutorial, please click here and let me know what you think!