The Framers Forum

I've been asked to frame 2 silks, both with an image area of around 30x25cm. Six of the sides have a generous edge, but the edges of the other two sides are only a couple of centimetres wide, if that.

They are extremely thin and delicate, they float in the air.

I'm thinking of either...
- Doing the "tight fit" method, but first wrapping some polyester around the foamboard cut-out and border to protect the silk from the hard edges of the board; or
- Sewing the silk to another fabric and then lacing the fabric around some foamboard. Not that I've got any suitable fabric, I'd have to source some.

Can I ask those of you who are expert at silk framing, what do you think of these ideas and what’s your own favoured method?

Get some calico fabric and sew the silk to it.
Then lace the calico around the foam-board as you suggested.
And of couse, space the glazing away from the silk.
I did this for an exhibition of antique silk scarves. I was going to back the calico with some thin padding but that looked all wrong at the time.

Stitching to a donor fabric and lacing that is what I’d do too, but not around foam board, that’s just unnecessary bulk plus none of it can be the same quality as conservation boards.

Depending on how much conservation you want, unbuffered boards are recommended for anything protein based. You could also use unbuffered tissue, behind the silk and also underneath any window mount.

Hi Rainbow

If they are as thin as you indicate then you need to be very careful of stitching or pinning, as it can cause problems with what looks like "runs" where threads have caught and pulled slightly. If the edges have a hem, then it makes life easier for stitching - use holes that already exist. If they don't have hems, then your first instinct of the tight fit method might be easier. Silk scarves are designed for handling and wearing so tend to be fairly robust, these sound more fragile than that.

So two options:

1. Tight fit method - nothing wrong with using foamboard for a tight fit, but I'd bond some Level 1 or 2 board to the face of it so that the mountboard is in contact with the silk across the surface, not the foamboard - depends how Conservation led you want to go and John is correct to advise Level 1 unbuffered as the best option. You won't be able to put any padding on the board as the fibres will just poke through the surface of the silk. If you want to do belt and braces of Newberry method then you can just add some pinning as well as the tight fit. But take care to use very fine pins (etymology ones are good for that) and watch out for those pulls that can happen. Lightly burnish down the "sharp" edges of the boards if you are worried about them coming into contact at all.

2. Sewing to support fabric - you can either lace that around a padded board (I'd use mountboard for that and the support fabric will stop the wadding/padding coming through into the silk) and then stitch the silk to it, or tension the fabric over bars and sew the silk to that, remove from bars and then lace it around a board to get it back under tension. I prefer to sew them on using silk threads, so that the stitches expand and contract at the same rate as the silk artwork, and tighter stitches along the top edge, looser on the sides and base.

Either way will work.

Really helpful replies, thank you all ever so much.