SEWTECH Magnetic Hoop Review & Test

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Hello, John Bloodworth, Gentleman Crafter here, and this week I was sent a magnetic embroidery hoop for my Brother embroidery machine by a company called Soetek.

[00:00:10]I was very excited to test and review this because I have been wanting a magnetic embroidery hoop for a long time because everybody raves about them. So, let's see what it's all about.

[00:00:23]>> [music] >> Let's start by taking a look at what Soetek sent me.

[00:00:31]So, it came very well packaged, nice protection during posting, and out it comes.

[00:00:38]So, it's quite actually quite heavy cuz it's nice solid metal, and you've got the magnets there as well.

[00:00:44]We've got instructions here.

[00:00:47]They are easy to understand, and they have visual guides as well for hooping different types of combinations of fabric and stabilizer.

[00:00:56]But, they obviously have a YouTube channel as well.

[00:01:00]So, you can get hold of that and take a look, and maybe even contact them.

[00:01:04]Now, the key to this is the magnets.

[00:01:06]Now, they are extremely strong, so they are a little trapping hazard. So, if you get them on your hands, they will kind of pinch your skin, and they are not compatible if you have a pacemaker, so look out for that.

[00:01:18]You can see how strong they are cuz I'm having to literally slide them, which is better, to be honest.

[00:01:26]Now, you have ones with hooks over the end, and also flat edged ones, and I'll explain why in a few minutes. Now, I'm just taking those all off, and we have a positioning guide there as well, which is very useful. Now, the surface is flocked, so it helps keep your fabric in position, as well as working in conjunction with the magnets. Only one side is flocked, so you'll know which side faces up ready for hooping.

[00:01:55]Then, we position it using the raised markers that are on the frame itself so that we can find the center point of the design and position it accurately on whatever we're embroidering onto.

[00:02:06]Now the center is there, which actually isn't the center of the hoop itself, and that's obviously indicated by the red grid, which is the stitching area. Now if I compare this to an original Brother hoop, you can see we have the same vertical and horizontal markings, but in that hoop, the stitching actually is in the center of the frame, whereas with the Soetek frame, it's slightly offset.

[00:02:31]So you'll need to keep that in mind when you're hooping up. We've got the same or roughly the same connectors, so it is compatible with my machine, and Soetek manufacture these to be compatible with a whole bunch of different machines, so you should be able to find one for yours.

[00:02:46]Now the original hooping method that we tended to use with machine embroidery is that sort of screw fix and double layer of frame, which actually can be quite cumbersome and tricky at times, especially if you've got multiple layers of fabric and you're trying to get everything lined up and keep it in position.

[00:03:05]Cuz you've got to basically unscrew the frame, take the inner out, put your stabilizer, your fabric, then replace the inner hoop, get it so that it pushes down without crumpling, stretching, or cinching your fabric, and then you've got to tighten it to a certain point where it's suitable for machine embroidery, which is usually sort of a drum tight. So if you tap on the fabric, it'll kind of create a drum sound.

[00:03:32]So, as I say, it can be quite time-consuming and cumbersome or tricky or fiddly, especially if you have difficulty moving your fingers. But what this frame does with the magnets is allows me to basically just pop down my stabilizer and my fabric combination.

[00:03:54]And then with the magnets, I can secure that in place nice and easily. Now, these flat ones I'm going to position actually near the connector.

[00:04:04]And that's because when I move my machine needle around, I don't want it to catch on the edges of those magnets.

[00:04:14]So, I'm actually working sort of in a in a methodical fashion, just basically positioning the magnet within the hoop and then sliding it out towards the edge where the little ridges or the overlaps or whatever you want to call them on the magnets come into contact with the frame.

[00:04:32]And what this is going to do is essentially the same as the original frame. It's going to keep it all in position, but it does allow a bit of freedom later on to move those magnets, to move your fabric, to add layers, take layers away when you're doing special stitch types like in the hoop designs or applique.

[00:04:54]Anyway, to get it into the machine, it's pretty much exactly the same as you would expect for any embroidery hoop.

[00:05:00]Put your presser foot up, slide it under that and then attach it to the connector on the machine. Now, I created this design from a combination of other designs within the Hatch Embroidery software that I often use.

[00:05:14]I'm using version 3 for this, but they have just released version 4, so do check that out. And I just wanted to check the sticks stitch sequencing to make sure that it was going to stitch out in a nice methodical order.

[00:05:29]So, once that was done, I sent it off with the Embroidery Connect device that's connected to my machine. It's basically Wi-Fi transfer for my embroidery machine that doesn't actually have Wi-Fi trans uh built in.

[00:05:43]And that's also available from Hatch if you want to know more about that.

[00:05:48]So, going over to the machine, I would retrieve that in exactly the same way that I do. Mine is an Innovis 750E personal embroidery system machine from Brother.

[00:05:58]As I say, these hoops are compatible with whatever machine you have. Now, I did do a test run on the area of the stitching and for the original hooping that I had for this, as you can see, that foot comes dangerously close to one of those mountain magnets. So, I did switch it out or actually move it off to the side a bit.

[00:06:19]Actually, I moved it off to the side a bit.

[00:06:21]But then I run it through the machine and you can see that going through here.

[00:06:24]Now, this isn't the real speed of the machine, as you can imagine, but I thought I'll just give it a go and see how we get on.

[00:06:32]There were obviously the steps in between for changing the colors, which you could probably see changing top right of the screen.

[00:06:40]But I cut those bits out cuz you didn't want to see me fiddling about.

[00:06:44]Now, my actual um The beauty of the hoop though is that it's really suitable for sort of all sorts of different projects.

[00:06:51]But the frame actually made a huge difference to my workflow. It took out a lot of the setup time and gave me more freedom back to be designing and creating, which is what I love. Studio light went out at that point. I don't know whether a bulb's gone or a power connector, but I didn't realize till after I was filming, so sorry about that.

[00:07:11]When it comes to getting it out of the machine, exactly the same way you normally would. Press the release catch, lift the presser foot, and slide it out.

[00:07:19]And there you go. You can see there is a bit of a difference with the magnetic embroidery hoops. So, I think I will be keeping this one and telling So Tech to line up some others for me, maybe.

[00:07:31]Cheeky wink.

[00:07:33]Anyway, that's it for this one. I hope you've enjoyed it and found it useful.

[00:07:36]Obviously, all the links and all that sort of stuff are either in the blog post that accompanies this video or below the video on YouTube. Please remember to give the video a thumbs up before you go and of course hit the subscribe button so I can let you know about future videos. In the meantime, thank you very much for watching.

[00:07:54]>> [music]