The following are a few techniques to make hooping our Small and Large Cosmetic bags easier.

The basic procedure is one known as the “hoopless” method. It works well for small or hard-to-hoop items. Instead of hooping the item, the stabilizer is hooped and the item stuck to it using a temporary adhesive spray. Here are the basics:

• First, hoop a piece of mid-weight tear-away style stabilizer.
• Next, spray the hooped stabilizer with a temporary fabric adhesive like the 505 Spray we offer at www.embroiderthis.com.
• Then adhere the area of the item to be embroidered directly to the sticky surface of the hooped stabilizer and you are ready to stitch!

If your embroidery machine offers a basting function, you may want to baste around the design area before you start stitching out the design for added security. If the item is extremely bulky, you may find it easier to hand baste the item to the stabilizer. For most items, the fabric adhesive spray is enough to hold the item securely without the added basting step.

To expose and flatten the design area for stitching, first turn the  item inside out! This makes it quite easy to flatten and isolate the area to be stitched. Roll any excess material out of the way and secure. You can use double sided tape, pins, and binder clips (available at office supply stores) to secure the extra material out of the way.

Cosmetic bag hooped and ready. Note the duct tape holding extra material out of the way.

You can also use either duct tape or Super StickyDap® StikArounds™ adhesive dots. Both products have great temporary adhesive power and will hold the extra fabric out of the way while you stitch. The duct tape and StikArounds™ are easy to remove cleanly after stitching is complete.