I love my scroll frames and the lap stands that hold them but they aren’t the best for traveling. Since I don’t travel, I guess I should say . . they aren’t the best for stitching away from home. When I was at my uncle’s last year, he had a great little chair but it had wooden arms so I put towels over the arms so the stand or frame wouldn’t scratch them. When I was waiting while Vince was in physical therapy and stitching, I used the frame and sat where there was a table I could prop the frame on.
There’s a cross stitch shop not far from here and they host stitches to come sit and stitch once a month so I wanted to go there but I didn’t kow if there would be room around a table for a frame that’s about 28 – 30″ long so I started looking at hoops and stands.
I had been seeing several stands that youtubers used when going to retreats but they are quite pricey and, for the amount of use they will get, I couldn’t justify buying those.
I found this one on Etsy. I’ve loved Notforgotten Farms for a long time so I ordered it and it arrived yesterday.
I love the tray in the base. The black circle is a magnet. I can put my scissors, floss, phone . . lots of things on that tray . . keep my stuff together. Of course, at home I can’t because Oscar and Cooper are always looking for something they aren’t supposed to have.
I loaded a piece of linen in the hoop and started stitching on the piece I plan to take to the first stitching day at the shop. I wanted to check it out and make sure I was going to like using it. I loved using it. It’s actually so much easier than stitching in the scroll frame with the lap stand because I’m not trying to work around sleeping dogs next to me but I do like being able to see the whole width of a project on a scroll frame.
A real advantage to stitching in the hoop is that I can flip it back and see the back side, secure threads, trim threads, etc. It isn’t hard to get to the back side on with the scroll frame in a stand but I do have to loosen a couple of screws and depending on where the dogs are sitting, I may have to disturb them.
You can see that in the scroll frame, I can see so much more. Adding the leaves across that top border would have been more difficult in a hoop but definitely not impossible.
I did a little stitching in the hoop to make sure it was something I wanted to take with me to the stitching group. It was great. An advantage for me when stitching in a hoop is that it’s easy to remove the fabric from the hoop and replace it. I machine baste the linen to the leaders on the scroll frame so except in rare cases, I’m not taking that project off the frame til it’s done.
I’m really happy with the hoop and stand and think I’ll be using it often for small projects.