I see lots of lovely textile art, I have been doing some woven pieces and was wondering how I can mount it? Anyone got any tips please.
Generally with textile pieces they are mounted onto mount board not in a. Aperture, then presented in a frame either without or with glass. If think and you want glass better to go for a rebate frame to ensure the work is not touching the glass. We were taught to do this when I did my C & G course years ago.
Thank you. When i made them at school we just threaded a stick through the top and hung, but it gets dust and insect damage. As these are only small pieces i thought mounting would be better.
Hi @pamadoodle
When i do embroidery or a textile piece i usually frame it, with embroidery I don’t put glass in the frame as it squashes and distorts the stitches. Not sure how it would work for weaving and most pieces I have seen have been hung from a branch or dowel so it probably depends on how thick the worked piece is but for a textile or embroidered picture I lay the stitched piece over a piece of sticky mountboard (i get mine from a framers shop) with an extra 1.5" minimum extra fabric overhanging all round. Once the stitched piece is in the right position I smooth it onto the board then I turn it over and using a strong top stitch thread I lace the excess fabric at the back…stretching it as tight as possible to remove any bumps., basically take a stitch from one side of the fabric overhang and thread over to the opposite side, pulling tightly as you go keep repeating every cm or so or until the picture is tight and no ripples and is now fitted around the mountboard.
I also put a thin layer of wadding between the stitched piece and the mountboard (cut this to the size of the mountboard and stick down before adding thestitched piece on top)
You can just use the sticky mountboard without lacing the back by gently pulling the piece to shape but the lacing gives a professional finish as it stretches the fabric. If it is weaving the sticky board might be enough as I don’t know whether you would have excess fabric anyway to lace to.
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Thanks. That’s a very detailed answer!
Hope it helped
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As a retired picture framer, I have mounted and framed 100’s of textiles over my 30 odd years of framing.
I used to sew the textile on to a backing mount, never used ‘Sticky Board’ as this has acid and other chemicals in the adhesive and the actual board, which given time can tur the texile brown, sure everybody has seen old prints and watercolours with brown spots (Known as ‘Foxing’) this is caused by the acid and chemicals in the board. Best to use conservation mount board or if you really want to go for the top quality, then use ‘Museum’ mount board, which is made with cotton, not wood fibers, so does not have the nasty stuff in it.
Once I have sewn the textile on to the backing board, I would either use a window mount on top (to hide any edges ) or frame with out a window mount, the frame would be made with spacers in to keep the glass off the textile, as glass (being cold) can get very fine condensation on the inside surface of the glass, so you want to keep this away from the textile, as it can cause lots of problems, such as mould etc.
In fact the picture / photo mount is used for this very reason, not to make your work look pretty, it is used to keep the glass off the watercolour, print or photograph, I have had customers bring in photos that have been framed before and they would like to have a different frame, but a lot of these photos (especially glossy photos) have become stuck to the inside surface of the glass, because no mount was used in the frame.
Sorry bit of a long winded answer 
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Thanks, very helpful answer. I hadn’t thought of sewing to a back.
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Sorry the board I used to stick it to first before sewing the back was Acid free board, the lacing method is a sewn method and stretches the piece.
I used to have mine framed by professional picture framers, over the years I spent a lot of money and was surprised when years later I took some of them out of their frames to put in a different frame that they had just stuck them to acid free sticky board, not sewn or laced to the back at all, needless to say I couldn’t remove them safely from the board to do again myself, which is why I started framing my own. When I frame mine I lay them on mountboard first then lace the back to stretch and remove wrinkles. This is obviously only for fabrics. I don’t always use the sticky board myself now but think for a beginner it’s easier than using mountboard as the position of the textiled piece can be kept still whilst lacing. The sticky board I have used is easy to peel the textile piece off.
It was helpful to know that photos need the mount to space away from the glass, I have a few old photos with little dots on which must be from touching the glass as you explained.
The Acid Free sticky board has only be available for around the last 5 years, it’s a bit thinner than the standard board. Lacing is the recommended way of attaching fabrics , needlepoint, cross-stitch and samplers, you do need patience lacing, but when you want to frame weaving art where you want to show the whole item, so you would ‘float mount’ or surface mount the item, and the best way would be to sew the item to a bigger backing card , then once attached, trim the card down to fit the frame
Thanks, that is helpful.
On the subject of textiles, does anyone know if there is a word for a professional knitter?
Google says you are a ‘Master knitter’ if you are a professional, personally I can’t see why you’d need a title, I mean an artist is still an artist if they create art, regardless of if they make a living from it, so surely a knitter is still a knitter, a potter is a potter, a jeweller is a jeweller? etc etc. Interesting question though.
I know what you mean. I was wondering, the wool I am using was a stash given me by an elderly, now deceased, friend when she retired. She used to make knitwear to order, but the trend at the time was mohair and it affected her breathing too much.
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