Spring Embroidery Hoop Art

My Spring Embroidery Hoop Art post contains affiliate links. I make a small portion when these links are used, at no additional cost to you.

This Spring Embroidery Hoop Art is my most detailed hoop, yet. I've just started embroidery hoop art about a year ago, and have been working my way up to more difficult pieces. I'm happy with how this one turned out, too. I've included a free pattern and stitch explanations for you below, if you'd like to create this embroidery hoop art for yourself.

Today's Spring Embroidery Hoop Art is actually a part of this month's Thrifty Style Team. All of my friends have shared their own thrifty fun at the end of this post. My contribution of an embroidery hoop is one of my favorite thrifty decor items...embroidery is a relatively inexpensive hobby and I LOVE finding hoops (and floss and fabric, too) at my local thrift stores. This Spring Embroidery Hoop Art is a great embroidery hoop pattern for beginners. In another post, I've also shared a complete tutorial on how to embroider the leaves on this hoop, as well.

Our Thrifty Style team has some incredible ideas for you this month, too! Their projects are listed out later in this post. 

Embroidery Reference Book

If you're new to embroidery, the above book is my little stitch bible. I keep it in my embroidery bag and refer to it often. The designs in it are nice, however, I love it for the stitch tutorials it has illustrated. It covers all of the basic stitches and a few more. 500 Simply Charming Designs for Embroidery is a great one to add to your craft library.

Spring Embroidery Hoop Art

This embroidery hoop is a combination of large, wagon-wheel style flowers (I used the embroidery hoop flower tutorial from Making Jiggy for all 15 of my flowers), my easy embroidered leaves (tutorial), a chain stitch, and simple back-stitched text. 

Just a quick note: keep on the lookout for hoops at thrift stores! They are MUCH cheaper there!

How to Create this Spring Embroidery Hoop Art

Supplies

• hoop art pattern (download below)
• white fabric for your hoop (I used a light, white on white dotted pattern)
• 10" embroidery hoop 
• I find embroidery hoops at thrift stores all the time. Or grab a 10" one here on Amazon.
• erasable pattern pen (I truly can not live without my Pilot Frixion Pens! They erase with the steam of the iron. Grab a pack here on Amazon.)
• DMC Embroidery Floss:
• Yellow: DMC 117-444 Dark Lemon
• Aqua: DMC Stranded Cotton 993
• Red: DMC 117-606 Bright Orange Red
• Green: DMC Stranded Cotton 699
• white felt for finishing the back of the hoop
• fabric glue

Download Your Free Pattern:

• Download the pattern on Droplr here.
• Download the pattern on Dropbox here.
• Download the pattern on Google Drive here.

Directions:

• After fitting the fabric into the embroidery hoop, I laid it on top of my printed pattern to trace. I do not have a light table, but instead an old-school office light from the 1950s (it's fluorescent...weird buzzing noise and all), that does the job. I just lay my pieces on a regular table, shine the light on top and I am able to perfectly trace everything out. 
• Again, instead of the usual water-soluble pens, I fell in love with these erasable Pilot FriXion pens for sewing and embroidery. To erase the ink, simply hold your steaming iron just hovering above it...it's so cool to watch it disappear. 

Stitches Used:

The above are all of the stitches used for this embroidery hoop. If you are not familiar with these stitches, see the following tutorials below:

• Leaf Tutorial via I Should Be Mopping the Floor
• Flower Tutorial via Pumora
• Chain Stitch via Sublime Stitching
• Back Stitch via Paraffle

• These leaves are very simple, but somewhat time consuming and can use a load of floss. I went through about three bundles.
• As you can see from above, I tend to bounce around all over the hoop without any order. I'll do a few leaves, get bored, do lettering, go back to leaves, repeat. 
• There is no wrong way to complete this one.

• After I finish, I trim the excess fabric.

• I finish my hoops in a very simple manner, since I hang most of them. 
• I use felt, cut in a circle and carefully glued in place to cover the floss craziness on the back of a hoop. 
• It's not the prettiest back, but it's ideal for hanging the finished pieces.

Like I mentioned, I used my Easy Leaf Embroidery Tutorial in this Spring Embroidery Hoop Art. You can also see this same method of embroidering leaves in my Mother's Day Hoop Art (shown in the video below):

Be sure to check out all of my friends' thrifty fun, too:

• Redhead Can Decorate
• 2 Bees in a Pod
• At the Picket Fence
• Bliss Ranch
• Chatfield Court
• Cottage at the Crossroads
• DIY Beautify
• Duke Manor Farm
• The How-To HomeI Should be Mopping the Floor
• Salvage Sister and Mister
• Smart Fun DIY
• The Painted Hinge Farmhouse
• What Meegan Makes
• Wife in Progress

An InLinkz Link-up

So...do you hoop?