hoop hung up

How to Make a Cross Stitch Storage Hoop (Plus Download Your Free Pattern)

In this post, I’m gong to show you how to make a cross stitch storage hoop with a free pattern in 10 steps.

I love these hoops because you can put things high up out of little hands, such as scissors, glue, felt pens and basically anything they can use to destroy your house.

In fact, I have another tutorial on making a mini scissor holder using the same techniques as below.

To Make a Cross Stitch Storage Hoop You Will Need:

  • Aida or evenweave to stitch on (at least 10 x 10 inches)
  • A desgin to stitch on it
  • Coloured cotton that will show in your hoop (at least 10×10 inches)
  • Coloured felt to make your flowers (at least 5 x 3 inches)
  • White felt to back your hoop (at least 8 x 8 inches)
  • Pom-pom balls
  • DMC threads
  • An 8 inch hoop
  • Scissors
  • Needle
  • Pencil
  • Pom-pom trim (optional)
  • Screwdriver (optional)
  • Sewing machine (optional)
  • Iron (optional)
  • Glue gun (optional)
What you need to make a cross stitch storage hoop

I highly recommend Love Crafts* for all of your needlecraft supplies such as aida, DMC threads and a hoop.

For your felt and pom-pom balls I love Cloud Craft. They use 100% wool felt which can be hard to find. Oh, and they match DMC thread colours for you which is perfect for this tutorial.

Step 1 – Stitch Your Free Design

You can download the free cross stitch pattern used in this tutorial here or use one you already have.

Stitch your design on at least 10x 10 inches if you are using an 8 inch hoop. You want your fabric at least 2 inches bigger than the hoop you use.

You can stitch your design on either 16 count aida or 32 count evenweave but I recommend evenweave because it’s easier to fold and get in the hoop. And for the rest of this tutorial I will refer to evenweave as that is what I used.

I have a tutorial on stitching on evenweave here if you are new to it.

When stitching your design, stitch your design, stitch it much lower than the centre; you want most design on the bottom half rather than the top.

stitch your pattern
You can see the fold which is my centre and that I have stitched below this.

Step 2 – Cut Out Your Felt

Use the inner part of the hoop and draw around it on your felt. Then cut it out and put it aside for later.

draw around your felt
cut your felt out

Step 3 – Fold or Stitch Your Evenweve

Your evenweave needs to be secured at the top so it doesn’t fray. You can do this 2 ways.

Either fold over your design, leaving a little margin above your words and use a sewing machine (or stitch by hand) to stitch a straight line across the top. Then cut off the excess evenweave at the back.

Or a quicker way (and the one I used for this tutorial) is to fold your even weave completely in half and iron the fold. The fold at the top will stop the fraying and as long as both layers of evenweave are in the hoop this should secure it.

fold aida

Step 4 – Iron Your Fabric

Now, I did skip this step (as you can tell below) but if you would like to iron it then you can.

If you would prefer to leave it then most of the creases get pulled out when it goes in the hoop.

Step 5 – Put Everything Together

First, get the inner hoop and put it on a flat surface. Then put your piece of coloured fabric on it.

fabric over hoop

Next put your evenweave on half way down the hoop, ensuring the bottom will be “caught” by the hoop. You can see me checking this by pushing on the fabric and seeing where the hoop is under it.

evenweave over fabric and hoop

Last to go on is the top hoop. Open the screw as much as you can then place it over the fabric and evenweave.

put hoop on

Next, tighten it so it’s secure but not too tight and then pull the evenweave taught and tighten the screw a bit more. Then pull the fabric taught and tighten the screw a bit more. And repeat, working your way around the hoop. It can get a bit fiddly!

pull evenweave taught
pulling fabric taught

Once you have gone most of the way around you may find you can’t tighen any more with your hand but some of the fabric is still a little loose/not taught enough (you want it to be like a drum).

If this happens, you can use screw driver to tighen the screw on top. I find I need this more when I have folded the evenweave completely in half as there are a extrea layers of fabric in the hoop.

tighten the screw

Step 6 – Back Your Hoop

To back your hoop, first cut off the corners of your fabric and evenweave to make it more even around the edges.

 cut off corners
hoop with corners cut off

Then do a running stitch (just in and out of the fabric) all the way around the fabric, bunching it up at the back as you go.

running stitch

Next, place the felt you cut out in step 2 on the back of the hoop pencil side down to hide those marks. You then use a blanket stitch to attach the felt or use a glue gun to stick it on.

 blanket stitch felt onto hoop

If you need further felt with a running stitch and blanket stitch I have a video tutorial on backing your hoop here.

Step 7 – Make Your Flowers

I have made my flowers from felt, but you can also use cotton. You use the same technique and the flowers will sit flatter on your evenweave.

I have a video below on how to make the flowers of if you prefer photos then keep scrolling.

First, cut out your felt into strips of 5×1 inch.

cut out felt

Next, use a running stitch (just in and out of the felt) and stitch a straight line along the bottom of the strip. I recommend using similar coloured thread and felt here.

 running stitch on felt

Bunch the felt together, and do a little backstitch at the end to secure it.

bunch up felt

Your 2 ends should naturally come together; use a whip stitch to secure them. Take your needle through both pieces, come back on yourself and go through both pieces again etc, working your way up the edge and back down again. Secure with a knot at the end and snip your excess thread off.

stitch ends together
ends stitched together

That’s it! (Well, for now anyway).

 felt flower in progress

Step 8 – Add Pom-Pom Trim

Use PVA glue to stick your pom-pom trim around the outer hoop. Work in sections, adding a little glue then sticking some time down and repeat around your hoop until you reach the end and snip the excess off.

Leave it to dry for about half an hour.

glue pom pom trim onto hoop
pom-pom trim on hoop

Step 9 – Get Your Glue Gun Out

glue gun

Glue your pom pom balls to the middle of the flower. If you want you can use buttons as a substitute and if you don’t have a glue gun then your can stitch them into the middle using a matching coloured thread.

glue gun pom pom ball onto felt flower

Now use your glue gun to put some glue on the bottom of the flowers and stick them to the evenweave.

 glue on back of flowers
glue on back of felt flowers
stick on flowers onto hoop

You can choose the layout, but I just went for 3 flowers with the middle sitting slightly lower, so it’s almost smile-like.

finished hoop

Again if you don’t have a glue gun you can stitch the flowers on.

Step 10 – Finishing Touches

Now add some ribbon or twine to the screw, hang your hoop up and fill it with all of those crafty tools.

hoop hung up

And you’re done!

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