finish: Akashi Beach (Maia) and a question

[buzzylittleb]

It went like this; I have a brother with a significant birthday in a couple of weeks, I see a kit that is absolutely him, I stitch in a hurry.

I finished the evening before he came back from uni.

fast forward to now

My brother is heading back to uni and I have two things:

• a frame
• a problem
  

Now, I am not trying to get you guys to square the circle

Comments

[geekjul]

Not to be difficult but I don't get what the problem is with this piece? It's lovely, I'm sure your brother will like it. Is it that your frame isn't the right size?

I don't see anything wonky or skewed, is what I'm saying....

[buzzylittleb]

Okay, the frame is more than the right size, leaves a nice demilitarised zone and the mount keeps it off the glass. The problem is that there is some distrotion at the sides of the piece, so rather than being square/rectangular, it comes out looking a little bit trapisiodal (I hope that's a word). Once you put it in a mount, it looks pretty twisted.

[geekjul]

Ah, I see. I bet once you wash and iron it, then mount it for framing, it will be fine. Good luck!

[tenthz]

You should be able to iron it square. You might want to use the steam setting on your iron and make sure you use a thin cloth between the iron and your work.

[away_she_flew]

Are you sure that it's skewed? I mean, sometimes it looks a little funny and then when you pull it tight it's OK. Maybe try that?

[marith]

Hmm. For a quick fix, if you can afford it, I'd suggest having a store frame it for you. Professional framers know all kinds of tricks with stretching and mats to sort out problems like this, I'll bet.

[amphipodgirl]

It seems to me that it's close enough to straight that once you lace it onto the backing board it should look ok (or you should be able to tweak it enough while lacing). If you're not familiar with lacing, here's the best description I could find in a quick google search: http://members.aol.com/hblossomxs/frame.html

thankies

[buzzylittleb]

I'm munching my way through the link, it's pretty intense.

This is going to take a lot more planning than I thought.

[xinef]

I was also going to suggest lacing. I'd wash and iron it to get it as straight as I could, and then carefully lace it before putting it into the frame.

Here are a couple more links, with illustrated instructions:
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/5680/Lacing.html
http://www.cross-stitching.com/kh_page.asp?id=172

[amphipodgirl]

Those are great links, especially the pics in the first one. Much better than just a text explanation!

And to buzzylittleb, yes, framing turns out to be more complicated than you'd think at first. I'm a little embarassed when I think of the first piece I framed as a gift -- basically, I just put the fabric behind the glass, full stop. It looked ok, but would have looked so much better if I'd laced it!