Hooping your items for machine embroidery can be one of the biggest challenges embroiderers face. There all types of stabilizers to help us, including adhesive, fusible, water activated glue, and more, yet my favorite stabilizer remains a 'crispy' tear away with no adhesive at all. I found the best answer is to simply baste the item to the stabilizer and then hoop it as usual. For example, our local Platoons were in need of gear tags for their troops, and two of my friends and I wanted to help. We needed about 150 gear tags, so we searched out a tactical supply source, divided the names and tags and got busy.

I found the easiest way to hoop these small tags (they are about 8" x 2") was to carefully draw a grid on a stabilizer sized for my hoop, with a line down the side of the length (to help me keep things straight) and perpendicular lines for each tag to be basted to.

The next step was to lay each tag on the grid and baste in place. All ready to hoop and embroider!

A topper stabilizer kept the stitches from burying into the tags, so I just taped it in place on top of the hoop. I used my camera on my Baby Lock Destiny to load all the names at one time and let them all stitch. If you don't have a camera, it's pretty easy to center and place the names independently on each tag because the grid lines kept all the tags nice and straight in the hoop!

So, things that are practically impossible to hoop can always be stitched to tear away stabilizer and hooped very easily! (Shirt collars, cuffs, socks, etc.!) What hard-to-hoop thing can you embroider today?

Thanks for visiting! Happy Sewing and God bless! Maxie