Re-Framing Stitchscapes

 

Over the last couple of months I have been taking Stitchscapes that were mounted onto square board, but never properly framed, and putting them back into hoops to frame them. The reason they weren't framed in box frames like my others was because I have run out of storage for all of the box frames and it was easier to store them as flat pieces. But, because I also took them with me as examples to workshops, the fabrics were getting tatty and the 3D stitches squashed so I wanted to do something to try and avoid them getting worse. 

Over lockdown (since March last year! A whole year of lockdowns and COVID troubles - who'd have thunk it?!) I have also been creating a hoop wall as a way to display all of the Stitchscapes I was making and I have come to really love this way of displaying them. It makes more sense I suppose as the Stitchscapes are created within the circle without moving the hoop so they look a bit nicer when framed by a circle. 

It was all going swimmingly well and my hoop wall looking marvellous with all of these re-framed hoop pieces but then I came across a problem where some of my bigger Stitchscapes had actually been stitched in a square embroidery hoop! So they didn't quite fit within the circular hoops of the same size. 

I decided that the best thing to do was to go up a hoop size in the circular hoops (square ones are pricey!) and to see what it looked like and, for the most part, it worked really well - see above picture. But there were just some areas which then looked a little naked and bare so I decided to re-work some of these areas and improve/add stitches to update it. 

So for Bartholomew's Oast House (click on the link to see the original post about this piece) I continued some of the single strand back stitches around the clouds of the top layer and added some big crosses to fill the calico gap at the top. Because I hadn't got quite the same colour blue for the back stitch and there was some fraying of the fabric edge, I also worked more stitches into the whip stitch at the edge of this layer to help bring that together and fix those issues. 

At the sides I filled in more of the plain green fabric with seed stitches, matching as closely as I could with the original colour. You can sort of see the colour difference here but I don't think it's enough to stand out majorly. Luckily the other fabrics did already have gaps in the stitching, or the original stitches had gone right up to the edges so that doesn't notice here. 

On the other side, I again worked more of those seed stitches, but also added more stitches to the wheat plant print underneath, matching the thread colours as closely as I could and working the same techniques and thicknesses as before. 

At the bottom, more raw edges of the blue floral had been exposed so I added more big loose crosses to help hold those edges down. It's perhaps the most noticeable fix as I couldn't blend it more between the existing crosses and that's the closest colour match I could get but, if anyone asks, the colour difference is intentional (sssssh, don't tell!).

I think Bartholomew will be much happier in a hoop, all of the rough edges have been tidied up (especially the tree trunks which were fraying a bit) and there will be a circle of felt added to the back as well to keep things neat. 

I have done the same thing to my Lulworth Cove Stitchscape which was also stitched in a square hoop. Not only that, but there have been sections of this piece which have really bugged me, namely how the fabrics have ended at the sides of the piece. If you click on the link to visit the original blog post about this piece you can see at the bottom what it looked like on a square board. Because it was based on a photograph I had cut small pieces and bondawebbed (glued) them on to the calico, which was fine for when I was working in the hoop but then on the square they just ended with harsh raw edges and it didn't look very nice. 

Putting it back into a circular hoop has solved these problems for me - apart from at the bottom where those green pieces just ended within the hoop itself. I think I have made this look much prettier now though as I have softened those rough edges by carrying on from the original seed stitches over the edge of the fabric where I now have the room to, working them onto the calico in some areas. I've matched the thread colours as much as possible, and on both sides of that 'walkway' into the bay, I have added more picot stitches and green beads. Some of the picot stitches are right on or over the fabric edge so you almost don't notice it's there!

The un-stitched gaps at the side of this piece were a bit more obvious than in Mr B's Oasthouse, so I have added more of the fly stitches on top of the cliff above to follow the line of the hoop as well as more running stitches, whip stitch, fly stitches and moss stitch on the opposite side of the bay, below. This wasn't so well matched in terms of colour, I can see the difference but I don't know if I'm just being picky? I've taken the colour more into the layer itself and added more moss stitches within the existing areas to help blend it together. 

Because this green layer then went further toward hoop edge than the yellow and blue whip stitch layers above it, I have added more to these layers as well and I'm much happier with it!

There was also a bigger gap at the top of the piece with empty calico, so I have added in yet more sun rays! It already had lots and lots of rays, all delicate one or two strand long stitches in about five colours, but I've now added another colour and taken this up even further. It's a pale yellow to help make it look like it's fading out into the distance. 

I think re-framing these pieces has solved a lot of problems and I have also learnt a lot about how and where to position my fabrics in the future, and how I would like to present my pieces. 

I'm quite happy for them to remain in hoops with felt at the back, and I've now got some really lovely little tags which I can stitch onto the back and write the name, date and pop my signature on. If anyone wants them in frames, I also have a framing technique where the whole kit and caboodle is framed - hoop and all!