Total Art Soul - for artists

Recently, a friend entrusted me with some tapestry cushions stitched and made by her late mother.  The tapestries had never been stretched and were all quite badly out of shape.  One even had a whole corner completely missing thanks to my friends new puppy!

My job was to straighten them out and make them into new cushions.

There were six altogether.  Here are four of them.

The first thing was to unpick the tapestries from the backings ready for stretching then there was the missing corner to put right.

I knew how to do it in theory but never actually braved it before - but it just seemed so worth having a go.  In the end, it really wasn't difficult.

First I unpicked some of the ragged stitching till I had some clear OLD canvas. Then I could pin a new piece of canvas to the back and line up the holes with the old. I matched the colours as near as I could and then began stitching through both old and new canvas to anchor the patch and then just carried on until the whole corner was complete.

Next, all the canvases had to be stretched.  To do this, I wind wire spirals into the edges and rig them up on this instrument of torture - the Stretching Frame.  Because they had been made up, nearly all the spare canvas round the stitching had been trimmed and mitred!!  Tricky.

Finally, they get thoroughly wetted and left to dry in the fresh air.

Now it 's off to the cushion lady with armfuls of fabrics and zips.  Well, I forgot the zips and had to do a return trip....

Two days later....

Lovely square, plump cushions to remind my friend of her mother's needlepoint skills for years to come.