Book Club: Hoop-La! by Kirsty Neale
I’m a self confessed Bibliophile so when I was offered the opportunity to review Hoop-La! by Kirsty Neale, I jumped at it. I’ve long admired embroidery hoop art and wanted to have a go at making my own. I’ll admit I was a little afraid that I didn’t have it in me to make the cute and amazing creations that I’ve seen shared all over the internet, but after making my own version of Kirsty’s “Multi-Hoop Zoo Dog” I’m hooked. It was so quick and easy, it seriously took me longer to yarn wrap the hoops (and how good does it look!) then to make the dog.
I used Ella Blue Hanky Linen in Charcoal to make the body of my Dog with some lovely Denyse Schmidt “Flea Market Fancy” ears (see what I did there?). I used Ella Blue Ella’s Basics Candy in Orange for the background and it’s the perfect stripe and adds a nice bit of interest to the hoops. These are 2 6″ wooden embroidery hoops wrapped in orange wool that I had in the stash. I’ve come to the conclusion that what takes a nice piece of embroidery hoop art to the next level is making sure you put some sort of finish on the hoop.
Hoop-La has 100 projects you can make with embroidery hoops and they vary in skill levels required. It’s the thing I enjoyed most about the book – there’s so many projects! The projects also use a variety of craft skills so it’s a great book for someone who likes to dabble in a variety of techniques. There’s everything from making your own screen print set-up, to crewel work, crochet, smocking, embroidery, patchwork, appliqué and simply choosing how best to display your favourite fabrics.
I’ve been flicking through the book for days and just enjoying all the possibilities. I love that it covers a number of ways to finish off your embroidery hoop. It’s also great that the projects contained in the book won’t break the bank. This means it would be a great book to have in the house and use for crafternoons with your favourite people. The projects are really easy so you could do the majority of them with younger children.
I also love that you can mix and match the projects to find combinations that work for you or use them to spring board into something else. The techniques are all so interchangeable that you’re free to make your own mark on the project and really make it your own. For example, I didn’t have any black felt so I just embroidered the nose on.
The only downside is that the templates aren’t on a disc or available via a website. This meant that our trusty $40 printer/photocopier/scanner combo had no way of blowing the project up to the size I needed. I ended up improvising and using the scanner to scan the template and then print it out at the required size. (Just call me Macgyver!) While this was a bit of a pain, it meant that I was able to perfectly resize the template to fit the hoops I wanted to use, which is one of the good things about all the projects they’re totally scalable so you can use what you have on hand.
Overall I’m really happy with the book and it’s one that I can see myself coming back to use again and again (especially if I’m in need of a last minute gift idea!).
Rating: 4 out of 5
Buy the Book: Click here to purchase
Skill Level: Beginner to Intermediate
In a nutshell: Great for someone looking for quick and easy projects. Perfect gift for an adolescent looking to have fun with crafts or someone looking to branch out creatively.
Author: See more of Kirsty’s work by clicking here.
Purchase Supplies: Be sure to check out the sale happening at Sew and So, you can save up to 75%, sale ends May 1. Click here to shop.
Disclosure: This book was provided for review by the publisher. All opinions expressed are my own and have not been influenced by the businesses involved. For further information about my disclosure policy please click here. This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase those items through my links I will earn a very small commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link, in fact in some cases I can offer you a better price via an affiliate link. I will not recommend something that I do not use myself. These commissions help me keep being able to provide you with great content for free. Thank you, in advance for your support!
