Homemakery How To: Crochet Around An Embroidery Hoop

I confess I have a little bit of a love affair with HoopLa! For those of you not sure what I’m on about Hoopla is quite simply using humble Embroidery Hoops to frame stitching, sewing or other crafty endeavours. What goes inside the hoop is just as important as prettifying the hoop  itself so today I’ve done a quick How To on Crocheting around an embroidery hoop. It looks amazing when its done and its quick project that only takes a couple of hours.

Ingredients

Yarn – I used Rico Essentials Cotton DK in Candy Pink (12)
4mm Crochet Hook
Embroidery Hoop – 7 inch

Instructions

All Crochet Stitches are UK. If you are new to Crochet I have linked each stitch to a handy diagram over on Learn to Knit

1. Create a slip knot on your crochet hook and slip stitch onto the hoop.

2. Double Crochet (DC) into the hoop. To do this put your hook into the hoop, hook the yarn through (from the back to the front). You will now have two strands of yarn on your hook. Yarn over the hook and pull through both strands of yarn. Thats your first DC completed.

3. DC all around the hoop until the yarn covers the hoop completely.

4. At the end of the hoop turn your hoop around, Chain (CH) 3 and then Treble Crochet (TR) into every other DC in the row below. Note: I did experiment TR into every DC but found that as I had so many DC it created a ripple effect which I didn’t like. Depending on the yarn you are using you might want to TR into each DC rather than every other.

5. Once you have TR all around the hoop join the last TR to the first CH3 with a slip stitch.

6. To create the scallops skip 1 stitch then TR7, skip 1 stitch and DC. Repeat. Note: if on the previous row you TR into every DC you might want to skip 2 stitches, then TR7, skip 2 stitches and DC.

7. When you get to your last couple of scallops its worth double checking the number of stitches left in case a little fudging on your scallops is required. I got lucky with this one and it worked out perfectly!

And thats how you crochet around an embroidery hoop!

A note on yarn

I used Rico Essentials Cotton DK yarn which is a mercerised yarn. The mercerisation process binds the fibres, strengthening the yarn and gives it a gentle sheen which reminds me of the sheen you get on embroidery thread. Owing to the mercerisation process the yarn is very smooth and the fibres stay together making it perfect for crocheting around an embroidery hoop. Normal cotton or acrylic yarn will give a slightly different effect as there is more give in the fibres and you probably wont have to do quite so many DC on the first round!

I will be back soon to show you what I did with my finished hoop!

Happy Hooking!