Once you’ve finished your embroidery and want to put it on display the easiest way to do this is to display it in the hoop you stitched it in. 

Many of the different techniques to finish off the back of an embroidery hoop for display require the fabric to be gathered first so that none of the excess fabric peaks out and so it also lies flat on the wall. 

• Before you start you may need to straighten up the embroidery in the hoop and make sure the screw fixture is at the top of the hoop as this is how you will hang it on the wall. Don’t forget once you have straightened it up to re-screw the fabric as tight as possible.

• Trim any excess fabric, but don’t trim too close to the hoop - you need some fabric to be able to overlap to the inner hoop for all methods about 1.5-2cm is perfect (it doesn’t need to be trimmed in a perfect circle but just make sure you get as close as you can). 

• Take a long length of normal sewing thread - long enough to go round the circumference of the hoop twice (to give some nice long ends to pull on to gather).  

• Tie a BIG knot in one end - it doesn’t have to be neat as it will get the chop later - but you do need to make sure that it won’t pop through the weave of the fabric as you sew

• Stitch around the fabric in a running stitch - each stitch should be reasonably long (around 1cm). Your stitches should be about 5mm from the edge of the fabric but don’t worry if it isn’t even from the edge all the way round.  

• Once you’ve stitched all the way round and get back to the starting point, gently pull on the knot end slightly whilst holding the other end so you have two tails.

• Then pull on one of the tails while holding the other to gather the fabric. Once it is gathered maintain the tension and tie the two tails together. It is tricky to maintain the tension so do a single knot first and then pull to tighten before doing the second (double) knot. Don’t pull too hard otherwise you risk breaking the thread.

• You can either leave it like this or pull the fabric at the back extra tight by stitching across the back from opposite side to opposite side.

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