Sewing with a hoop frame

[watervole]

My wrists have been playing up a lot recently and it's become difficult to hold fabric while stitching, so I've started to use a hoop frame in a stand.

However, I'm finding it very difficult to fasten off on the back.  The stand is very good - I can flip the hoop over for easy access to the back, but the tension in the fabric makes it difficult to slide the needle under the stitches to fasten off.  It's also hard to fasten off near the edge where the frame gets in the way - I'm using a very small hoop as it's a miniature embroidery.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Comments

[megamole.livejournal.com]

Suggest you talk to miss_next - this is very much her area, both wrists and embroidery.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I don't know her.

[megamole.livejournal.com]

I can pass your query on, either anonymously or not; let me know if you'd like me to.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

THanks for the offer, but I've had several helpful suggestions that I'll try.

[ang-grrr.livejournal.com]

I only fasten off through the stitches in the manner you describe with my final thread once the fabric is off the hoop. Instead I leave a tail of thread that I simply stitch over with the next nearest set of stitches. Similarly I start by tying a knot, threading the fabric through a hole ten stitches along in that colour and then sewing back. If I don't have ten stiches of that colour I leave the knot in until I know it's been fixed with enough stitches. It makes for some interesting looking fabric sometimes (I think my record is ten knots trimmed in one go) but you get very neat backs.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I'll give that a try. Mind you, I don't do the kind of pattern that has ten stitches in a row. Mine generally chop and change colour every few stitches.

[metamorphosa.livejournal.com]

I found using a semi-circular needle really helped with fastening off near the frame, and is a more ergonomically-friendly shape for levering under those tight stitches.

The other suggestion would be to use a large piece of fabric that can be trimmed down when you're finished. This would enable the use of a larger hoop even when stitching miniatures.

[julesjones]

The other way I've seen suggested for miniatures is to cut a hole in a larger piece of fabric, and tack the working piece to it. This is useful when it's a kit with a pre-cut piece of fabric.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I didn't know you could get semi-circular needles - that could be handy.

[fifitrix.livejournal.com]

Or... you could just relax the fabric in the frame a little.
Not enough to annoy you but enough to have the give you need.

But metamorphosa's suggestion of the semi-circular needle is a good one too. I've used those before when doing cross stitch and embroidery and they are good.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

THough I do find the tension in the fabric is doing wonders for the evenness of the stitches - and I thought mine were pretty good to start with.

Where can one get these needles?

[fifitrix.livejournal.com]

these kits have them in but to be honest I'd see if you can get to a haberdashery to look at them so that you can get the right guage and size for you!

http://www.sewessential.co.uk/Search.asp?SearchString=curved+needle&Offset=0

[lexin.livejournal.com]

Where can one get these needles?

Lewis's in London carry them, I saw some when I was there today. If it turns out you can't get them locally, let me know and I'll go pick some up.

MacCulloch and Wallis of Dering Street will probably carry them, too.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

THe only curved needles I could find locally were oens for upholstery repair which were much too thick.

If you could get any near you that are a more suitable size for embroidery, then that would be great.

Thanks

[lexin.livejournal.com]

I'll mosey up to Lewis's and McCulloch and Wallis next week and see what I can find for you.

If I haven't got back to you by - say - Thursday, feel free to remind me again.