Textile hanging anyone ?

[Bagpuss]

Hi,
I have a textile coming in soon (see below), the customer doesn't want it in a frame, under glass, she would like it displayed on the wall, attached to a frame of some description. Has anyone done anyone like this before ?
I can't treat it as a canvas and stretch it around stretcher bars.. should I attach Velcro to the back of the textile and attach it to a wooden frame or would that not stretch it enough?

Any suggestions gratefully received

sajni_textile.jpg (163.92 KiB) Viewed 2967 times

Thanks,
Adam/Bagpuss

[Roboframer]

I wouldn't attempt stretching, I'd support sew it to foam board then bond that to something more substantial and then that can be stuck to a frame, maybe a floater frame.

[Tudor Rose]

Velcro is a possibility but it looks heavily beaded so it may cause sag over time unless you could support it all over and that would be a pain I imagine. My first instinct (without being able to fully examine it this is a bit of guesswork obviously) in this would be to sew support it to a board and then put that into a frame, you could use something like an inlay frame, so no glass. But as customer doesn't want a frame that might be too much. So if the material allows could you attach a tube of fabric top and bottom and use dowel lengths through them to support it which then get attached to brackets on the wall (or a variation on that theme). Those are my first thoughts on it anyway, I imagine others will have alternative ones

[Not your average framer]

I get asked to do jobs like this by a local textile designer. Like your customer, she does not want to see a frame. I think that it is a fairly standard thing with textile designers that they don't want to see a frame. Fortunately this one is easier that most, because it has a narrow single colour border all around the outside edge, where it can be sewn onto a support backing using a thread which will match the colour of the border exactly, so that the support stitching will not be visible.

Can you get any of the fabric used to make the border? If you can this would be most helpful! For best effect, the support backing needs to be very thin, but still very rigid. I would use di-bond as the support backing and cover the edges with some of the same material as used for the border and pierce the added fabric and the di-bond to facilitate sewing the textile to the di-bond, but before sewing the textile in place, I would make a deep frame of much smaller dimensions than the textile and fasten this in place with small screws passing through the di-bond.

Small screws will have small heads and therefore will not create any noticeable bulk behing the textile. A wise precaution would be to tape over the screw heads with Linco aluminium barrier tape in case the screws later develop any rust. In which case the Linco tape will prevent and rust staining of the textile. The deep and well inset frame on the back of the di-bond will privide the means of hanging the textile on a wall, but well spaced forward to give a visually interesting floating in space effect.

The holes in the di-bond will probably need to be lightly contersunk to remove any sharp edges before sewing in place. Other carefully placed pairs of holes would enable strategically placed support sewing to prevent a tendancy for sagging elsewhere within the borders of the textile. BTW, if your customer has similar taste to my customer, then she will probably love the floating effect. It will look stunning when finished, if you make sure that the rear frame is inset well away from the edge of the textile. I would make the depth of the rear frame about 2" for the maximum dramatic effect.

Take care when pricing a job like this, it will be very fiddly work and the price needs to reflect this!

[Tudor Rose]

That sounds like an excellent solution Mark and an idea I will happily pinch for future projects of this type.

[Not your average framer]

Be my guest!