Which embroidery hoop is the best?

You might already know that not all embroidery hoops look the same, act the same or are made the same. But chances are, you haven't yet laid your hands on some of them. So let's take a close look at the most popular and widely available hoops and see if we can find the One.

Disclaimer:
This blog post is not sponsored. Everything I lay to 'paper' is my own opinion based on my personal experience.

Bamboo hoops

These embroidery hoops you most certainly will find in any craft or hobby store. Great, right? Well, they are so available and popular for only one reason – the price.

Most of the time, bamboo hoops will be the cheapest option (sadly, I often see bamboo hoops sold at much higher prices than they're worth).

I would never recommend these hoops as it's one of those "you get what you pay for" situations. More often than not, bamboo hoops are not suited for the job.

Here's a couple of reasons why:

• They won’t hold fabric tension due to awful warping.
  You can often spot giant gaps between the parts of the hoop with a naked eye. Guess where the fabric is not gonna be held in place?
• A flimsy enclosure.
  In 99% cases it will be made of aluminium which as we know is one of the softest metals out there. Once you try to tighten your hoop, the enclosure will bend and come together where the screw sits without actually tightening the hoop.
  Oh, and the screw itself almost never has a screwdriver slot which makes it that much more difficult to tighten.

So save your fingers, walk past these hoops if you can.

Plastic hoops

These come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and finishes, but mostly share similar features, one of which, in my opinion, is a massive selling point.

Moulded edges.

This feature is unique to plastic hoops, as far as I know, and offers incredible opportunity for really good fabric tension. Because making plastic is what humans are good at, these hoops are rarely imperfect.

But what they are (a lot of the time) is ugly. I said it.
I just don't understand why they have to be made using such obnoxious, very nearly neon colours. Again, that's not always the case, but often times it is.

If moulded edges are to your liking, I recommend you check out Rico hoops. They are one of a few brands that don't subscribe to the tacky colours idea.

Tip: if you can't get display-worthy plastic hoops for whatever reason, I recommend you still get some plastic hoops, use them as a vessel to embroider, and then re-hoop your work in a nicer looking hoop after. I used to do that before I discovered my favourite hoop brand.
I'm getting ahead of myself.

Flexi hoops

Flexi is for "flexible."
These hoops come in all shapes and sizes and are meant for display. I think they are anyway, because unless you're stitching through felt, they are pretty awful at holding fabric tension.
The enclosure is for decoration/hanging purposes only, which means you cannot control the fabric tension manually. It's not so awful for extra heavy fabrics like duck canvas or felt, but for medium or lightweight fabrics, it's a no-no.

Also, as a side note:
Because the outer hoop is made of rubber (the inner is made of plastic), it's not the easiest job in the world to get that rubber stretched over the plastic.

In one word – Idon'trecommend

Unbranded (who knows what wood it's made of) hoops

These types of hoops are generally lightweight (made of soft woods) and flimsy. In my experience, they can look sort of okay, but workability suffers greatly.

They are a step up from bamboo hoops tho.

Elbesee beechwood hoops

Aw, these I don't love. 
And it slightly annoys me that they usually get high praise. But hear me out.

Elbesee is a great brand, okay? Even tho no one seems to know how to pronounce it. They've been moulding stuff for decades here in the UK, which is fabulous, but they are a bit old school, and in my opinion, lack innovation.

About the Elbesee embroidery hoops:

• Made of beechwood, but questionable quality.
• The enclosure is thin and super short, the screw sits so low, it is incredibly uncomfortable to use fingers to tighten it, you have to use knuckles.
• The screw I don't hate

Overall, Elbesee is a great option for the price, but don't expect perfection. These hoops are far from it.

Nurge beechwood hoops

I am what you would call an unofficial ambassador for Nurge hoops. ONLY because I genuinely think they are the best. They are certainly the best I've ever held in my hands.

Back in the day when I was throwing cash at anything and everything embroidery-related because I was so green and eager to discover the best of the best for myself, I stumbled across these online and someone kindly lead me to the name of the brand.
It's been my hoop of choice ever since.

About the hoops:

• The hoop structure is unique and premium. You actually get a lot of wood for the buck. Where most hoops are made to be between 3-4mm in thickness, Nurge hoops sit at 5mm per hoop part. That makes it super sturdy.
• When 8mm depth is the standard option, there's also 16 and 24mm options available.
• The enclosure along with the screw is top notch. Made of brass each side is 2.5mm (and has reinforcements) in thickness making it impossible to bend.
• Finishings are lovely and the screw has a screwdriver slot.

The only somewhat negative thing I can say about these hoops is that whatever coating they use on the brass doesn't age well. And I know that brass ages as it's supposed to, but I think it's the coating that I have a slight issue with. 

Oh and the price. Nurge hoops are certainly on the pricier side.
However the same applies as with any other hoop, you get what you pay for.

Despite all of that, Nurge hoops undoubtedly take the stage. 

To sum it up, lets finally visit the main reason why a good hoop might be worth the extra investment – the joy of stitching. 

There's nothing worse than loosing the interest because the tools meant to serve you work against you instead. 

Writing this blog post really got me looking at all of these hoops 'under a microscope' and now I really want to make a detailed 'comparison' video about Elbesee vs Nurge as these two are clearly dominating in quality. So stay tuned for that, and follow me on socials if you don't already.

And lastly, it's worth mentioning again that this blog post is not sponsored.
I take pride in my reputation and it is with great care that I talk about or recommend what you spend your money on for certain things.

Leave a comment and let me know if you think I've made some unfair judgements anywhere or missed anything important.

Comments aren't subject to approval.

 

Links:

Nurge Hoops
UK: https://nurge.net/
US: https://needleorthread.com/

Elbesee
http://elbesee.co.uk/

Rico
https://www.rico-design.de/en