A customer recently asked me if I could stretch a tapestry just over a metre long by half a metre wide – far too big for the stretching frames I have.  So my first thought was ‘No, I could not’– swiftly followed by my second thought which was ‘Why not?’   I have stretched a big tapestry before.
In the 1990s I copied a section of William Morris’s Forest Tapestry from blown up photographs after attaching the canvas to a weaving loom that I just happened to have!
It needed stretching when finished, but it was awfully big and It was my 80 year old mother who had the answer.  We put down carpets of towels, pinned it to my bedroom wall and sprayed it thoroughly – wondering all the time what could possibly go wrong!
Well nothing did.  Eventually it dried, perfectly straight and now hangs in my living room.

However, my bedroom has been decorated since then and I am not inclined to repeat the exercise.
So for this new tapestry, I bought a big board, a lot of little nails, found some old towels and stretched the tapestry on the board with the added advantage of being able to take the board outside into the sunshine to speed up the drying.
The edges went slightly wavy where the nails had pulled, because there was so little spare canvas at the sides – but the whole thing was back to square.  Off it went to my customer and in no time she sent me this picture.  All the wavy edges are hidden away in the seams underneath!

She told me later that she had made up the pattern as she went along.  You don’t always realise what extremely gifted stitchers you are working for!

A bit of a fuss has been going on about the Team GB Olympic kit designed by Stella McCartney. It features the union flag in shades of blue & white rather than red, white and blue. It was announced on Facebook and users have been quick to slam the design – something I recently experienced myself and lost at least one sale that I know of, for my Diamond Jubilee design.   In two of the corners, I have blue & white Union flags.  And one customer who had asked me to put a kit aside for her rang me up to say she didn’t want it because there was no red on the flag. (Red would look horrible in this design and I think she agreed with that, but she wasn’t budging!)
It isn’t an earth shattering idea;  designers have successfully produced images of the flag in all colours of the rainbow and they look fabulous.
I’m rather pleased with Stella though.  I wanted to have at least some sort of nod to the Olympics in the 2012 Jubilee design, but the rules are so watertight that it is impossible without paying a lot for the privilege.  Now I seem to have got it with a subtle reflection of the Team GB kit.  That must be okay surely?  My design was published first!

Home Patch and Mosaic Hearts.  Very excited about the two fabulous new tapestries we launched recently, both full of rich colour and gorgeousness! Both tapestries are on 10 count canvas – easy to see and a pleasure to stitch.

Home Patch has a patchworky, applique, slightly vintage style with a touch of lace.  There’s fun to be had with it too, by filling in the ‘O’ with a chosen flag if you are feeling patriotic.  The printed canvas does not have the flag, but there are charts for the UK, US and Australian flags, or you could easily devise your own, particularly if it has nice and easy stripes!  It needn’t be the whole flag – just enough.

Then there’s the stunning Mosaic Hearts.  Great fun to stitch, and difficult to put down. The hearts seem to be jostling for attention and the zingy colours make sure this tapestry won’t go unnoticed!

I have often banged on about the advantages of using a tapestry frame for your stitching, the main one being that your work will not distort nearly so much as it will if you stitch it ‘in the hand’.
Some people find frames awkward to use and at times I do as well!  Especially when starting a new tapestry where I tend to begin at the top. When the tapestry is attached to the frame, the top can be rather high up and you have to stretch across the canvas to stitch the first couple of inches.  Stitching is far more comfortable from about the middle of the frame downwards.
The good news is that you can stitch the top of the design upside down with no visible effect on the finished tapestry!  My mother discovered this as she used to fill in backgrounds of new designs for me. Just turn the whole frame round so that the top is at the bottom and then you can stitch comfortably from there until you have got past those distant areas at the top edge of the design.  Below, I’m stitching a prototype of the New Diamond Jubilee tapestry, so the canvas is not printed but that makes no difference.

I am also rather more mean with spare canvas for my own stitching – there is far more on all sides in the kits!
Of course, if you use a frame, you can’t go wrong but if you stitch in the hand, be very careful if you want to turn the design, that you only swap top to bottom and vice versa. If you turn the work to the side, your stitches will slope the wrong way!

With Christmas behind us and a New Year just starting, you probably feel you have earned some “Me Time”  and what better way to relax and become lost in your thoughts than with some tapestry.  You could rummage about a bit, before putting your feet up and find any tapestry treasures that you have been meaning to finish which have found their way to the back of the cupboard or the bottom of a bag.  Yes- we all do that – I have rather more than most!

 Often, there is not that much left to do and in finishing them off, you will remind yourself how much you enjoy stitching.
Alternatively, you will remind yourself what you didn’t like about it.  Was it too complicated, too fine or too dreary? At least you will know what NOT to look for next time! 

Once it is done, please do go the next step and make it up into the finished cushion. The transformation is astonishing and even the most twisted, screwed up piece of tapestry takes on a new life and becomes a thing of beauty and value.  I know this sounds a bit over the top, but it really is true.
We can make up your treasures for you if you wish – the Cushion Ladies will soon be back, raring to go. (They get a bit bogged down immediately before Christmas with last minute curtains and party frocks!)
So when you are ready, do give us a call.  If you want to make up your cushion yourself, we have a Stretching Only service (to straighten up your tapestry, no matter how crooked it is.)   Or we have a full  Making Up Service with all the details there.

My last order of 1000 tapestry needles, brought with it a few surprises! I didn’t notice it at first, but when packing larger kits, I put the bulk of the wool inside the canvas and hold it all together with the needle.  And these needles were bending!!  They were really easy to bend.

I sent a handful of the new needles back to the supplier who were as mystified as I was and have now counted and checked 1000 more needles to send to me as a replacement.
I have bent tapestry needles before, but it took a couple of years when I used the same one all the time to see how long it would last.  It took on a gentle curve, but I had to throw it away in the end because as it wore, it became too sharp!