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Picture Framing Demystified

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Stretching Tapestries & Needleworks

When stretching large format tapestries you should use foam core or the backing supplied with the frame. The board should be at least 3mm and preferably 5mm thick. You also need a suitable thread for fixing, and linen or cotton of the right thickness can be used for this purpose, although embroidery wool is best. You also need a needle with a suitably large eye, glass-headed pins, and padding if you want to wish to give the tapestry or other piece a padded look. The following steps are called for:

Use the frame backing or a piece of foam core backing board.
Cut a piece of padding of the same size if required.
Place the padding on the piece of board, then lay the needlework on top, display side up. Make sure that the edges of the needlework and the card coincide appropriately.
Fix the needlework to the edges of the card provisionally by sticking a pin in the middle of each side and at the corners, and fold the overlapping fabric over the back.
You are advised to begin sewing in the top left corner from the rear of the backing. Pass the wool through to the other side, and then continue in a zigzag pattern. Pierce the canvas at equal (1cm) intervals. The sewing will be complete when the needlework is safely mounted and uniformly tensioned on the backing board.
Now sew the other two sides in the same way. The lines of wool will run across to those of the first two forming a criss cross pattern to keep maintained.
Now remove the glass headed pins, which were used only to fix the tapestry to the backing temporarily. Instead of criss crossing the wool vertically and horizontally you can work diagonally.

Tapestries and other works on fabrics mounted by either of the above mentioned methods could be directly inserted into the frame ie, framed without a mount (mat), and with or without glass. If you require a mat, the above process is the same however; you will need an additional backing the same as the frame size. The tapestry (which is now stretched over the board) can be taped to the back of the mat with tape.

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