Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Hold It!

What do you use to hold your fabric while you stitch? A hoop, a Q-Snap, a scroll frame, something else, or do you stitch in hand? Have you always used just the one thing or have you tried one or more of the others? Which do you like best? Why?

I used to only use wooden hoops to hold my stitching. I got along quite well using these for years, the only time I've ever had any problems using them was when I stitched on really large pieces of material like the Cattitudes RR and then the weight of the fabric became a bit of an issue.

This year however, I bought my first Q-snap frames on the encouragement of Jayne Hall during our Stitching Retreat Weekend in March. I quite like these and the fact that you can dismantle them into sections makes them a bit more portable than large hoops, although I do get some very strange looks from people if I'm assembling my "plumbing" in public prior to stitching in a cafe or something.

My favourite holding device though now, has to be my lowery stand. Which I bought back in April from Jayne's Attic



I like the lowery because it allows me to stitch two handed and thus build up quite a good stitching speed, as well as easily flipping my work over to fasten off threads at the back.