How to Hoop Your Fabric Without Wrinkles

The hoop seems like the easiest thing in the world: drop in the fabric, tighten, and stitch. But if you've ever finished a session with loose, crooked or marked fabric, you know there's a knack to it. Here's how to get it drum-tight without a single wrinkle.

Prep the fabric before hooping

Iron the fabric on a warm setting before you start. Any factory creases caught under the hoop will stay there for the whole project and are a nightmare to remove later. Two minutes of ironing saves you a lot of grief.

Hooping step by step

• Loosen the screw on the outer hoop until the two rings come apart easily.
• Lay the fabric over the inner hoop, centring the area you'll be stitching.
• Press the outer hoop down over the top, pushing evenly.
• Tension by gently pulling the edges of the fabric, working around the hoop like a clock face, until it's smooth.
• Tighten the screw fully at the end, not before. If you tighten and then pull, you mark the fabric.

The fabric-wrap trick

Want professional tension? Wrap the inner hoop with a strip of thin cotton tape (or a strip of the fabric itself). That little bit of thickness grips the fabric better, stops it slipping and leaves no mark. It's the secret of lifelong stitchers.

Look after the fabric while you stitch

• Take the fabric out of the hoop at the end of each session. Leaving it mounted for days leaves a round ring that's hard to remove.
• Don't stitch with the hoop over finished stitches. If your piece is large, keep moving the hoop onto unstitched areas so you don't crush your work.

In short

Iron first, tension little by little, tighten the screw last, and unhoop when you're done. With well-mounted fabric, your stitches come out even and stitching is far more comfortable. Our needlepoint kits include the perfect fabric to practise all of this.