Today’s article is an example of either Really Bad Timing or Really Good Timing, depending on how you look at it.

I want to show you the Most Adorable, downright cute, perfectly constructed, beautifully finished tiny little hoops that you can use for finishing itty-bitty embroidery projects – whether you want to finish those little broder-bits into jewelry, ornaments, keychains, tiny framed things to hang from your ceiling all over your house…

Perhaps I should have mentioned these well before Christmas, so that you could use them to finish little embroidered ornaments or fun and unique jewelry to give as gifts. It’s too late for that now, but look at it this way: January gives you plenty of time to prepare for next Christmas, and for all the holidays, birthdays and other occasions in between!

Better yet, it’s also a great time to make something fun, just for yourself.

These little tiny hoop frames are made in Australia by Dandelyne, who has an Etsy shop where she sells assortments of different sizes of these precious little things. They’re also available in the States through Nordic Needle. I bought mine directly from Dandelyne before I realized they were also available here.

And although Dandelyne’s shop is closed right now for holidays (through January 18), you can sign up for notifications when the shop opens. Like I said, bad timing – or good, depending on how you look at it!

Let’s get on to the hoops themselves…

You can purchase the hoops individually or in combo packs. The combo packs come in all kinds of configurations, in case you want to try different sizes or shapes. The hoops come in round (all the way down to 1″ round!) and in oval shapes.

Keep in mind, these are not hoops for actually doing embroidery. They’re for finishing. They provide a wee frame around a wee piece of embroidery or other textile art – maybe just a pretty swatch of fabric, maybe something felted – there are lots of ways you could use these!

Each hoop is made up of three wooden parts – the outer ring, an inner disk for mounting your work, and a backing.

Each piece is meticulously finished, which is one reason I really love these little beauties. They are so well made, very precisely cut so every piece fits perfectly, and smooth, smooth, smooth.

I love the fact that there’s a pre-cut center piece that fits the hoop perfectly, making mounting your work really easy.

You can either mount directly on the inner wooden disk, folding the edge of the fabric around the disk and glueing or sewing it in place, or you can add a disk of interfacing or something similar, to lift your work up out of the hoop and give it some extra dimension. It’s up to you.

Once your work is mounted inside the hoop and the screw is in place (shown below), you cover the back with the backing wood, glueing it in place. The backing has a little notch cut out from it, to ensure that it doesn’t show from the front and that it fits right where it should!

Now, this is The Thing: To me, the fact that these tiny hoops have hardware is what makes them the crème de la crème of mini hoops.

There are other mini hoops out there, but they don’t usually come with real hardware. They usually just have an extending little wooden tab at the top of the circle. So they lack the real look of a good embroidery hoop that has real hardware on it.

I love the hardware on these things! It’s brilliant! And it’s actually really good, sturdy hardware – albeit quite small!

Each hoop and combo pack comes with step-by-step instructions for finishing your little miniature work of art and framing it in the hoop, too, so there’s no guess work involved.

So, if you’re looking for a clever way to finish up little bits of embroidery for ornamentation – jewelry, Christmas ornaments, name tags and the like – you might give these little mini hoops a try!

My original plan was to stitch up tiny Christmas ornaments and use the hoops for finishing, but it was one of those plans that never quite came to fruition. (Do you ever have plans like that? Or is it just me?)

Now, I’m thinking about tiny monogram necklaces, pins, keychains and things like that, for gift-giving throughout the year.

Again, you can find these miniature hoops through Dandelyne’s Etsy shop (they mail really quickly from Australia) and here in the States, through Nordic Needle. Incidentally, at Nordic Needle, I notice they also have some stitching ideas in the product descriptions, so if you’re wondering what to stitch for inside the hoops, there are some good ideas there!

I just love little embroidery! And these tiny hoops make an easy, cute way of finishing. I hope you’re as thrilled about them as I am and that you can find some exciting uses for them!