What size should my embroidery fabric be?

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I have seen many embroidery tutorials where someone begins by putting fabric into an embroidery hoop and then immediately trimming it, leaving only a couple of inches around the hoop. If you are going to frame the finished piece in that hoop and keep it there forever, that isn’t a problem.

The advantage of that is that you don’t have to worry about your stitches getting caught in the extra fabric behind your hoop. But I recommend that you avoid doing that unless you have to.

After you have embroidered 10 or 20 hoops, you might want to move on to another type of project. If you have always trimmed the fabric, that might be a hard habit to break. With practice, you can stitch without catching the extra fabric.

To decide what size your embroidery fabric should be, you need to know how you are going to be using it.

If you want to make a 12” square pillow, your fabric needs to be at least 14” square. If you want to put it in a larger frame, you will need at least a couple of inches on each side of the frame. To use embroidery in a quilt, again, you will need extra space for seam allowances.

Whenever possible, use fabric that is a bit bigger than you think you will need. Then when the stitching is finished, if you need to adjust it to centre it in a frame or quilt block, you are able to do that.

It is always easier to trim fabric down than try to make it bigger.

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