Sunshine Appliqué Embroidery Hoop
Create a colorful sunshine embroidery hoop that will brighten up any space! It’s great for using up scraps of fabric from your stash!
Hello Crafty Friends! Today I’m sharing a tutorial for making this sweet and colorful sunshine embroidery hoop! This new hoop is perfect for using scraps of fabric from your stash. This is a great beginner appliqué project that uses simple shapes and only one hand sewing stitch. Grab the free appliqué pattern on my blog to get started!
This hoop is created by appliquéing fabric with an easy hand embroidered running stitch. I love how simple and non-fussy the running stitch looks. It’s just enough to hold the fabric in place and it’s quick to do. I used black floss so the outline of the shapes really popped. It reminds me of a coloring book page with the black outlines and fun colors inside.
I love creating simple embroidery hoops. Check out my Pumpkin Embroidery Hoop and Sunflower Embroidery Hoop for other simple designs that come with a free pattern.
Sunshine Embroidery Hoop
Supplies Needed:
- Free Sunshine Appliqué Pattern
- 9″ embroidery hoop
- Black Acrylic Paint
- Blue cotton fabric – I used a 12″ x 12″ piece for my 9″ hoop.
- Fabric scraps in 11 rainbow colors plus yellow, black and pink for the sun and sun’s face
- Black embroidery floss
- Sewable Fusible Interfacing for Appliqué – I used Thermoweb HeatnBond Lite.
- Embroidery Needles
- Embroidery Scissors and Fabric Scissors
- Iron – I used my Cricut Mini Press
- Wool ironing Mat
Painting the Embroidery Hoop
Step One: Start by painting the embroidery hoop black using black acrylic paint. You only need to paint the outer hoop but I do recommend painting all sides of the outer hoop. You can see in my picture below that I didn’t do this but I ended up needing to. I could see bits of the raw wood peeking out after stretching my fabric.
Transferring the Pattern
Step Two: Stretch your fabric in the hoop and trace the pattern. Make sure to pull the fabric nice and taught and tighten the clasp at the top of the hoop. Place the printed paper pattern on the back side of the fabric and hold the hoop up to a window to trace the pattern with pencil.
Cutting Out the Appliqué Shapes
Step Three: Use the appliqué pattern to cut out the fabric sun rays. Lay fusible interfacing over the pattern, paper side up, and trace the shapes. Make sure to label them so you know where they go. Bubble cut around each shape leaving a small 1/8″ border around each of them.
Next, iron each piece to the wrong side of fabric and cut the shape out directly along the line.
Ironing the Appliqué Shapes
Step Four: Iron the shapes to the embroidery hoop to create the design. Start with the large yellow circle. Peel the paper from the piece and iron it to the hoop from both sides. Next, iron each individual colorful sun ray to the hoop. Iron the two black eyes and pink cheeks in place as well.
Embroidering the Hoop
Step Five: Next, embroider the fabric pieces. I used black embroidery floss and a simple running stitch. Stitch around each shape, then embroidery the smile and the the straight sun ray lines. When embroidering the straight lines, try to keep your embroidery floss on the back side in line with the floss on the correct side. This will keep it from showing through your fabric.
Finishing the Hoop
Step Six: The final step is to finish the back of the embroidery hoop. Using thread, stitch around the end of the fabric with a running stitch, pulling the fabric toward the center of the hoop as you go. Tie a knot securing the gathered fabric. If you’d like to finish the back of the hoop further, you can add a piece of cardstock or felt to the back of the hoop using fabric glue.
Add a hanging loop to the hoop using Baker’s Twine, yarn or string.
The hoop is finished and ready to add a bit of sunshine to any space!
If you are looking for other fun embroidery projects, check out my Embroidery Crafts page.
Get the Free Sunshine Embroidery Hoop Pattern!
Fill out the purple form below with your first name and email address! The free file will be sent straight to your inbox! If you have already filled out the form below, don’t worry – you won’t be added to my list twice! This freebie is for personal use only. I hope you enjoy crafting something special. Please let me know if you have any questions :)
