Practicing Tambour

• 1). Stretch the fabric over the bottom piece of the embroidery hoop and secure the top piece of the hoop over it. Pull all the edges of the fabric taught so the fabric is smooth and tight.
  
  
• 2). Make a slip stitch with the yarn and hold it beneath the face of the material on the hoop.
  
  
• 3). Insert the crochet hook into the material and place the slip stitch onto the hook from the wrong side of the material (the bottom of the hoop). Pull the hook back through the material, bringing the slip stitch with it. The knot of the slip stitch will be left on the back, or wrong, side of the material.
  
  
• 4). Insert the crochet hook again into the material (the first loop of yarn will still be on your hook), about 1/4 inch from the first insertion. Wrap the yarn around the hook and bring it back through the material and through the first loop.
  
  
• 5). Continue in this established pattern of inserting the crochet hook 1/4 inch from the previous stitch and drawing through a new stitch from the backside of the work each time.
  
  

Finishing Off

• 1). Pull the last stitch you made a little larger than normal and remove it from the crochet hook.
  
  
• 2). Cut the yarn with the scissors on the wrong side of the work, leaving a 3-to-4-inch tail. Thread this tail onto the tapestry needle.
  
  
• 3). Insert the needle through the backside of the work so it comes out on the right side about 1/4 inch from the second-to-last stitch made.
  
  
• 4). Draw the needle through the last stitch made and pull it up so that all the yarn from the tail you cut is now on the right side of the work, threaded through the final stitch.
  
  
• 5). Insert the needle on the outside of the final stitch, only a little way from where you brought it up to the right side of the work and pull it back down to the back side. As you pull the yarn back to the wrong side of the work, it will secure the final stitch and make it lie flat.
  
  
• 6). Knot the yarn on the wrong side of the work and thread the rest of the tail back into the work on the wrong side of the piece before unthreading the needle and removing the piece from the embroidery hoop.