Finished product...
I may not have mentioned this enough on SYE, but I love all things crafty. Particularly anything with a needle and thread and fabric makes me swoon. When deciding how to decorate our reception hall, it suddenly occurred to me one day that fabric filled embroidery hoops hanging from the ceiling and walls were the way to go!
Some friends a few years ago had decorated one wall in their apartment with fabric-filled embroidery hoops, and this spring Liberty of London decorated an area of their haberdashery department with about 30 different sized hoops suspended at different levels above a display table. Once we decided this was the way to go for our decorations, Mom started scouring the local thrift stores for their stocks of embroidery hoops, coming up with about 30 of them in different sizes plus a stand for one of the really big ones!
Once we were home a week before the wedding, Alex and I went to another charity shop that recycles supplies that come in to make new goods (quilts, scarves, bags, etc) and got to raid their store room of fabric! While red and brown are our central colors for the decorations, we’ve been incorporating small splashes of yellow and orange as well (it is fall after all). With a vintage feel, boy, do all the fabrics look good together!
We’ve yet to decorate (although the wedding is days away now–not too long!) so you’ll have to wait on the photos, but for now, this is how you can do it yourself:
Supplies:
- Hoops, different sizes (6″-24″)
- Multiple cotton fabrics, at least 1/2 yard of each
- Scissors
- Fishing line or ribbon (for hanging and/or accent)
- Ladder (for hanging)
What to do:
- Unscrew embroidery hoops into two separate pieces and lay the bottom hoop (the one without the tightener on it) on the table.
Action shot!
- Lay fabric over bottom hoop, positioning it to maximize fabric and pull as flat across as you can (it will sag a bit in the middle still!).
- Push top hoop over bottom hoop to sandwich the fabric and the fabric should pull tighter as you do this.
- Pull fabric taut as you tightener hoops together.
- Flip over and trim with sharp fabric scissors (tried a razor blade too, but scissors were much easier to slide once it got going!)
- Embellish with ribbon at the fastener and suspend at desired height with fishing line or ribbon!
The day we did this, I was in the hair salon when I flipped through a Martha Stewart Summer 2010 wedding magazine and saw they’d decorated a table by suspending hoops from the ceiling too! Not bad having your ideas affirmed by the one and only Martha…
All photos by Alex.
Beautiful! The thrift stores of the State always pull once again! It warms my heart to see the dining room work station…
These are awesome – what a great idea. Can’t wait to see them in action!
Erica, this is amazing!!! I love it. What an amazing idea — I want to put some up in my apartment.