The risk of juggling too many WIPs

I think having a bunch of embroidery wips (work in progress) can be a great thing! If you're not vibing with your half finished project today, it doesn't mean you won't in two weeks time, right? Well, kinda..

But, there is something you should consider before you start building your pile of wips. 

Fabric tension. 

Of course it's the fabric tension. It's always the fabric tension :D.

As you might know, I personally like my hoops to be set up with maximum available tension, and I'm pretty strict about it because my satin stitches demand it, and who am I to mess with the elite? lol
So I'm a massive proponent of having drum-tight fabric for embroidery. 

At the same time however, I absolutely hate the excess fabric around the hoop. It's messy, it's in the way, it annoys me. Tell me I'm not alone? 

So I set my tension high, tighten the screw, and cut off the excess fabric. At the core. Crazy right? How am I going to make sure I can re-tighten the fabric throughout the whole process? 

Yeah, I agree, my practices are a little extreme. 
But I have a good reason that allows me to get away with it in this case.

Truth is, I don't ever have more than two wips. Most of the time, it's just one actually. I guess I'm just one of those people?
I will be done with this wip within a few days or so.

My wip above is currently sitting in a 4" Nurge hoop which is 16mm in width. And once I'm done with it, I will be re-hooping it in an 8mm hoop, which will allow me an extra 8mm of room to grip onto the fabric. 

Not ideal, I know. To be completely honest, normally I would have left a bit more excess flopping about, but I needed a good representation for the video and this post, so I figured I could get away with less this time round. I suppose I'll let you know how I get on with it when the time comes. 

Back to my main point. 

Fabric cannot be trusted. 
Embroidery hoops, cannot be trusted either. 

If you stretch your fabric in a good quality hoop and leave it untouched for months, it will not be perfectly tight when you come back to it. Just facts. 

Wood moves with temperature and humidity, and fabric doesn't want to be stretched.

So my advice is to keep an eye on your wips. Give them some a-tension from time to time and only cut excess fabric at the core if you are certain you will be finishing your project sooner rather than later. 

Learn this one simple trick to make your fabric stay taught for longer here.