large "tapestry"

[The Common Framer]

Hi

Have a large ( 100 x 140 Cm ) fabric piece that I need to frame. Lace it around A foam board? ( Too big??) What else can I lace it around. Too big for T Pinning as well I assume...

Any help offered greatly and humbly appreciated !

matt

[Graysalchemy]

You can get jumbo boards of foamcore.

[Tudor Rose]

We did this one recently, 2m x 2.4m. It was a fabric piece the customer had brought back from India. We sewed extensions onto the edges of it as it had very little fabric around the edges and this gave us something to work with. We created a support board from mountboard and then laid that over custom made stretcher bars with brace bars from Bird & Davies in London (we use them a lot and find their service to be very good). It needed support boards as otherwise it would have sagged until it's own weight. The whole thing was then just stretched like a canvas. The picture shows the piece before all the corners were tucked in properly so in some places you can just see the black fabric we used as the extension pieces. It was the quickest and easiest way of supporting it and the customer was delighted even though they had to hire a box van to be able to get it home.

We have laced something roughly the size you are talking about, but that is incredibly time-consuming in comparison and so if supporting it like a canvas is possible with the fabric you have then I would certainly look at that as a possibility.

[The Common Framer]

Thanks Gents. I have ordered Jumbo boards - just concerned they method would not be strong enough. Having said that - the work is not particularly heavy. I imagine I could always bond 2 boards as well if needed .

Your solution is a good one Tudor Rose and one I shall keep in mind for future projects - this one however, needs to be "glazed" with acrylic and therefore it is not suitable in this instance..
cheers

matt

[Tudor Rose]

Not a problem (photo is of hubby by the way, I'm not a gent ) You could still stretch it around bars to go into a frame even if you need to use acrylic, just space it away with a slip or fillet as you would a canvas that was being glazed.

[Graysalchemy]

you could always make up a composite board by stick a few together to make it thicker and stronger. If you do try and bond them back to back to take out any curvature that is sometimes inherent in foam board.

[prospero]

You can always knock up a frame with square timber and lay a board on top. Then lace the fabric over it - assuming there is plenty of margin to wrap around. I once did a 'tapestry' about that size this way. It was a machine-made thing and the stitches had distorted the backing to such an extent that it was fully 5 inches or so wider at one end than the other. I used a roll and a half of #0 nylon cord and acquired a huge blister. But I managed to persuade the thing to conform with the frame.