All machine embroidery requires a stabilizer applied to the back of the fabric to prevent stretching, waving, pulling and skewing the design, but hooping fabric can be a frustrating challenge. And once the fabric is hooped correctly you often end up with dreaded hoop marks. The answer? Don't hoop the fabric; use a sticky stabilizer and hoop it, not the fabric, and eliminate frustration and hoop marks.

What is Sticky Stabilizer?
Sticky stabilizer is a machine embroidery stabilizer that has a slightly waxy paper coating, called the 'release side', over a self-adhesive, non-woven sticky backing. Some brands have a grid on the release side that comes in handy for positioning and marking.

When to Use the Sticky Technique
The hoopless sticky technique works best on smaller, less stitch intensive designs and on small areas such as pockets, edges, ribbons, cuffs; in other words, those areas that are difficult to hoop anyway. The hoopless sticky/float technique is by no means for all machine embroidery projects but it is a machine embroidery hooping option and finding what works best for you is a matter of good ol' trial and error.
Mastering the Sticky Technique

1. Trim the sticky stabilizer to about an inch wider and longer than your hoop.
2. Hoop the sticky with the release side up. It should be secure in the hoop: Tight, flat and without puckers or bubbles.
3. Remove the waxy paper coating from the sticky inside the hoop by first very gently scoring it with something like an X-Acto(R) knife or thread pick, then peeling it off.
4. Use your hoop's grid template to place marks on the stabilizer to locate the straightline center and right and left edges. Be sure to place your grid gently over the sticky with the bowed side up. Otherwise the sticky will do its job and grab onto your template.
5. Now lay out your design's placement on your fabric or garment, again marking the straightline center and right and left edges. Important: Place these marks on the backside of the fabric.
6. Grasp your fabric from the backside on the marks to make a gentle fold and, lining up the fabric marks with the marks on the sticky, carefully lay the fabric, backside down, on the sticky.
7. Smooth out the fabric, ensuring it is flat and secure on the sticky all around.
8. Now lock the fabric to the part of the stabilizer that is hanging over the edge of the hoop (the part with the paper still on) just to make sure it doesn't get caught on anything while embroidering. I often just pin it but double stick tape works great, too.
9. Mount the hoop onto your machine and 'float' a layer of stabilizer (tear-away, cut-away, or whatever type is recommended for your fabric) between the embroidery hoop and the needle plate.
10. Push the button and embroider it!
11. When your absolutely perfect design is finished, remove the hoop from your machine and remove the floated stabilizer.
12. All you have to do now is slowly peel the embroidered fabric off the sticky.

Machine embroidery just doesn't get any easier or more fun than this. And no hoop burns!

Deb Schneider is an embroidery design digitizer offering her machine embroidery designs, Redwork embroidery designs and appliques and machine embroidery information on her website: WindstarEmbroidery.com.