Commercial embroidery is a process. Failure to complete each and every step correctly can lead not only to problems, but disaster. At no point is this truer than in the all-important area of hooping. In the following excerpt from the education section of The Deer’s Embroidery Legacy web site renowned commercial embroiderer John Deer discusses some of the hooping issues of particular concern to those making the jump from hobbyist to pro, including the differences between commercial and home embroidery hoops; some useful techniques and tricks to help make your hooping easier; and some of the hooping aids currently available to embroiderers and why and when you might need them.
Having come from the commercial side of embroidery, I must admit one of the things that surprised me most when entering the home or hobbyist embroidery industry was the shape of the hoops
You see, in the commercial embroidery industry, the shapes of most hoops are circular/round. In the home embroidery industry, one the other hand, most hoops are rectangular or square, which is why you get sizes like 5-inch-by-7-inch hoops.
In the commercial world, round, or circular, hoops are often favored because they provide even tension across the entire area being embroidered. Photo by Ismail Sadiron – stock.adobe.com
Now logically, the commercial (or circular) hoops do make more sense. The reason is because with rectangular hobbyist hoops, there are four corners where the fabric is held securely, but there are also the long straight areas of the hoop between the corners that are not held as tightly or securely. This leads to the fabric becoming loose and causing issues like design misregistration and puckering.
By contrast, because commercial hoops are circular, the material is held securely and evenly in all areas of the hoop. Instead of only having four strong corners, the pressure is evenly dispersed throughout the entire hoop, which makes the fabric less likely to become loose or pull inward. Think of it like a drum: a drum is circular so that the drum skin (or drumhead, as it’s also called) can be stretched evenly across the entire surface to make it tight.
To this day, I personally prefer using circular hoops over square or rectangular-shaped ones, because they do a better job of holding your fabric and stabilizer securely in place. However, it is by no means a must. The good news is many home and commercial crossover machines now come with circular hoops. You can also custom order circular hoops for most brands as well.
Correct Machine Embroidery Hooping
Properly hooping a garment will increase the correct registration of a design, and reduce puckering and movement. Unfortunately, I often see embroiderers take a screwdriver and tighten their hoops as much as they possibly can after hooping. Do not do this on materials you care about! It will cause hoop burn, making the fabric look stretched and worn. Instead, try implementing the following hooping instructions into your embroidery.
Step 1: Get Your Hoop & Fabric Ready
The first step toward proper hooping is to grab the piece of material you’ll be stitching on, fold it in half and give it a tiny bit of pressure. This will give you a measurement of how thick the fabric is when folded and also provide you a visual guideline showing you how to properly pre-adjust the space between the two halves of your hoop.
The idea is that by pre-adjusting the hoop to the right size beforehand, you won’t have to play around with any tightening after the material is hooped.
After inspecting the material you’ll be embroidering, take your hoop and pull on the corner that has the adjustable knob and loosen or tighten it to make the separation between the two halves of the hoop roughly the same width of the visually measured folded fabric.
Step 2: Hoop Your Material
When you’ve finished your adjustments, place the bottom half of your hoop on the table in front of you, so that the adjustable corner with the knob is the farthest away from you.
After properly laying your material and stabilizer on top of the bottom half of the hoop, take the top half of the hoop and in one swift motion, push it forward and down into the bottom half of the hoop to pop it into place. If adjusted properly, there should be a little bit of resistance, but you shouldn’t have to fight with the top piece of the hoop to press it in.
Instead of tightening the hoop by turning the knob afterward, while the hoop is still on the table grab the material sticking out of the longer sides of the hoop and pull gently. Then pick up the hoop and push the corners of the hoop in slightly, making it drum tight and machine-ready.
That’s it, now you’re ready to place your hoop on your machine and start stitching!
Hooping Tips, Tricks and Techniques
Now that you know how to hoop and the difference between commercial and home embroidery hoops, here are some helpful techniques and tricks that will help you tackle any embroidery hooping project:
Using the smallest hoop possible for a particular design will ensure the material being embroidered is as secure and stable as possible. Photo by Ruslan Shaforostov – stock.adobe.com
1: Use the Correct Hoop Size
Simply put, you will always get the best results if you use a hoop that is closest in size to the design you are embroidering. If, for example, your design measures 3.5-by-3.8-inches, use a 4-inch-by-4-inch hoop, not a 5-by-7. Although this is a fairly basic sounding principle, quite a few embroiderers don’t follow it.
2: Use T-pins for Large Rectangular Hoops
If you ever need to secure your fabric in a large rectangular hoop, I suggest you use T-pins to hold the fabric securely in place. Note, though, that when employing this technique the T-pins may leave holes in the underlying fabric, depending on the kind of fabric you are working on.
For this technique, you’ll hoop your fabric as you normally would. Once this is complete, you’ll use T-pins to secure the stabilizer or fabric in place and stop any potential movement. The T-pins should be inserted where the stabilizer or fabric sticks out from in between the two hoop frames after being hooped flush with the frame. This way, if the stabilizer or fabric begins to pull in around the loose areas of the frame, the T-pins will be there to catch it against the frame and stop any movement.
I recommend inserting these T-pins around the long straight areas of hobbyist hoops as these sections are not held as tightly or securely. The corners will not require T-pins.
3: Use Double Sided Tape
Using double-sided tape is a great technique when dealing with sheer, slippery or stretchy fabrics, the reason being that the stabilizer touching the outside part of the hoop will do a much better job holding on to the hoop.
The issue of puckering within a design often occurs when the material touching the plastic of the inner hoop doesn’t grip the material sufficiently. The result, if you have one part holding securely and the other slipping, is distortion and puckering. Applying double-sided tape to the outside of the inner hoop where the material touches the hoop eliminates this slipping between the stabilizer and fabric and will give you much better results.
The best part is, the tape will work for multiple hoopings, until it loses its stickiness, at which point you simply remove it and apply a new piece. I’ve also found it doesn’t harm or leave any residue to most fabric types. Essentially it does almost the same job as the T-pin technique but is much less invasive of the fabric. This technique is a win-win in my book.
3: Don’t Over-Tighten the Embroidery Hoop
Again, remember not to over-tighten the hoop by aggressively adjusting the knob after the fabric has been hooped. I see this all the time with beginning embroiderers. They first hoop very loosely, then aggressively turn the knob to tighten. A finger-tight turn or two may sometimes be needed, but never take a screwdriver and tighten the hoop to the max. This is a waste of time, causes fabric burn and will be harmful toward your embroidery stitch out.
As suggested earlier, instead of tightening the hoop by turning the knob afterward, while the hoop is still on the table grab the material sticking out of the longer sides of the hoop and pull gently. Then pick up the hoop and push the corners of the hoop in slightly, making it drum-tight. A simple finger-tight turn at the end may sometimes be required but not always. You don’t want a loose hoop allowing the fabric to slip, but you also don’t want to damage your hoop or the fabric being embroidered by over-tightening.
Embroidery Hooping Aids Make It Easy
If you’ve ever tried hooping with an embroidery hooping aid, I don’t have to explain the perks. If you haven’t, well, you’re in for a treat! Embroidery hooping stations, boards and other systems are great aids that help you hoop more quickly and easily.
In terms of who will benefit most from the use of these kinds of tools, I would recommend a hooping aid for anyone who:
- Has trouble hooping
- Hoops difficult items, like baby onesies, sleeves, embroidery buddies or socks
- Embroiders multiple similar items at a time, for example, 10 shirts or more
- Doesn’t enjoy hooping
I say this because hooping aids really do speed up the process and reduce the chances you’ll make a mistake and have to hoop again. Not to mention they actually make hooping fun!
My personal recommendation for a quality hooping station that won’t break the bank is the Echidna Hooping Station. It’s the only hooping aid on the market that uses magnets to allow you to hoop quicker and easier than ever. Simply place your hoop on the elevated non-slip board, secure it in place with powerful magnets and hoop.
Hooping aids of this kind fit virtually every sized hoop on the market and are not specific to any particular machine brand. The Echidna system, in particular, is easy to use and, unlike other hooping stations, doesn’t require additional add-on attachments, have a giant instruction manual or cost a fortune.
What’s Next for Embroiderers?
Hopefully, this article has taught you a thing or two about hooping. If you’re new to commercial machine embroidery, I would strongly suggest you try hooping a few items along the lines of the steps provided above. Although hooping isn’t the most fun part of embroidery, it is one of the most important, and as the old saying goes, practice makes perfect.
If you’re more experienced and in search of an easier way to hoop, do check out a system like the Echidna Hooping Station. It makes the entire hooping process much faster, easier and less frustrating. In the meantime, keep on hooping, learning and creating beautiful embroidery!
Award-winning embroiderer John Deer is head of The Deer’s Embroidery Legacy, a family business since 1958 with operations covering the length and breadth of the embroidery business, including production, education, digitizing and distribution of the Tajima SAI embroidery machine. Embroidery Legacy’s long list of blue-chip clients have included Coca-Cola, Disney, and, yes, even the equipment manufacturer John Deer.
