Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Making life a little easier, one small step at a time

I'm sure you probably know this by now, but I hand-embroider my tag inside every one of my items (well, the sewing stuff anyway, I haven't quite figured out the best way to add it to crochet. And of course that's assuming I remember before it's too late!). When I made the decision to do this, I bought an assortment of embroidery floss because I wanted to have the tag match the item it was on, not stick to a basic black or white no matter the background. At the same time, I also picked up an embroidery hoop because I knew it would make it a lot easier to work with. The problem was, I bought an eight inch hoop. What in the world was I thinking?! Needless to say, it doesn't work AT ALL, and the only time I've taken it out of the bag I brought it home in was today when I wanted to check the size so I could write this.

So up until now, I've been holding & stretch all my pieces by hand. It's not impossible to do, but it's not exactly easy on the hands. Until today, I just hadn't gotten a chance to run back to Michael's, and never remembered to look while I was at JoAnn's. Today I needed to make a run to Michael's to pick up a new embroidery floss color for a purse I'm working on & thankfully remembered while I was there to pick up a smaller hoop.

Enter this little baby. At 2 1/2 inches, it's absolutely perfect!


I was able to stitch up two quick projects in less time than it used to take me to do one! Heaven!

The coolest thing is they're not the old-fashioned wood ones that you have to screw tight & worry about getting splinters in your fabric. The outer ring on this one is rubber, and just stretches over the inner plastic hoop. So wonderful!


It did leave a bit of a ring when I took it off, but after a quick press with the iron, it was all nice & smooth again.

...how'd you like that sneak-preview of the next purse I'm working on? :)...

I picked up two of the hoops because I've been wanting to make a copy of my tag (our "brand") to put up in the kitchen. I went back & forth between this size and one up (three or four inches, can't remember for sure), but decided to just stick with the same 2 1/2 inch hoop.

After I finished it up, I cut the extra off short, then super glued it down to the inside of the inner ring. I know this probably isn't the "proper" way to do it, but it worked for me!



Here it is in its new home on the shelves Nick built for me! I'm thinking I may actually hang it from the side once I have more stuff to set on the shelves, but it's a good place for right now.


Sharing this today over at Sew Much Ado:

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