DIY Embroidery Hoop With A Photo (including a free pattern for the frame)

Today I’m sharing a cute home decor project. This DIY embroidery hoop has colours and a photo that are perfect for spring and Easter, but you could adapt them to suit any time of year!

Read on for details on how to put one together, and for a free printable pattern for the frame…

I was inspired to make this by one of the classes at Big Picture Classes (see my review of their new website HERE) – there’s a class called Made With Love by Meghan Hoeppner which is about making beautiful gifts. One of the lessons is to fill embroidery hoops. Mine didn’t turn out anything like Meghan’s but that’s where my inspiration sprang from!

Here’s how to make your own…

Step 1: First print off this free pattern HERE (you’ll be prompted to download), which will give you a template for the embroidered frame. You are welcome to use this for personal AND professional use, just please credit me where you can:

Step 2: Print the pattern off (onto transfer paper if you’re using that), and find an embroidery hoop (mine is an 8″ hoop) and a piece of linen or other fabric to embroider onto:

Step 3: Use your preferred method to transfer the pattern to your material (HERE are a few ways to transfer the design). I taped my pattern, and then my fabric, onto a window to trace it:

You can use a sharp pencil to draw the design onto the linen:

Step 4: Undo your embroidery hoop, put your material with the design on inside, and close it up again to pull the material taut. Find some embroidery threads to use with your design:

Step 5: Find something relaxing to listen to or watch while you embroider!

I stitched all my lines with a simple backstitch, as that’s about the extent of my embroidering ability, but if you can do anything fancier, go for it! One thing to note is that you need quite small stitches on the hearts, so that when you go around the curves they look smooth:

Step 6: Finish off the back of the embroidery hoop. If you are giving it as a gift, selling it, or just really want it to last forever, then THIS is an excellent way to finish the hoop off. But I hadn’t left myself a big enough margin of material to do this, and as I’m keeping it myself I just went for the trimming-off-the-excess-material method.

This isn’t advised as it makes it impossible to take out the material and wash it, or just re-stretch it if it starts to go saggy, and if the material starts to fray it may fray round to the edge of the hoop. I tried to at least fend off this last problem by sealing the edges of the material with a little PVA glue:

Step 7: Create some words to stick onto your design -you could use alpha stickers or die-cut words. I used my Cricut Explore to create the words ‘just wandering’, using the Chalkboard Fonts – Condensed font for ‘just’, and the Songbird font for ‘wandering’ (for this word I also moved the letters closer together and then welded them):

When they were cut from pink and teal papers they were so small and delicate:

So I used my Xyron 150 to cover the backs with adhesive:

Step 8: Stick these, and your photo, onto your hoop design (I used double-sided tape all over the back of my photo to adhere it). I placed all the items gently onto the front, then flipped the hoop over to press down from the back to make sure they were nicely stuck:

Step 9: Add any finishing touches. I decided it needed one little extra at the top left, to balance out where the word ‘wandering’ is longer at the bottom right. So I added a flower-shaped brad from my stash:

That’s it, you’ve made something pretty!

Have you ever tried embroidery? I feel like I want to try lots more now… I might start adding to some clothes belonging to Little Miss!

I’m including this post in the Creative Mondays Blog Hop Linky Party.

Have a great day,

Jennifer x

DISCLOSURE: Cricut have provided me with a Cricut Explore Machine, some materials, and access to the Image Library, which helped me write this post. However ALL opinions in this post are my own and not governed or controlled by Cricut in any way.

P.S. I’m linking this up to the Tatertots & Jello Palooza and Diana Rambles Pin Me Linky Parties.