Nuts, Bolts, Dowel Sticks and the Laughing Cavalier

Linen is notorious for creasing. I want to do some pulled thread on a 50 count linen but this small, neatly folded piece proved even more difficult to press than usual, despite an eventual thorough drenching. If I wanted to avoid creasing the linen with a round embroidery frame, it seemed like I would have to exchange my usual small hoops for a larger, square frame. 

Years ago my father made me a scroll frame after I had seen one at the Knitting Bar in Benoni. The shop assistant recommended that I put my 'tapestry' of the Laughing Cavalier onto an embroidery frame and showed me one that had been set up in the shop. 

The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals, courtesy Wikipedia

My budget didn't stretch to a frame after totting up the pile of tapestry wool I needed. Instead, my dad listened to my description, dug around in his garage, and two days later I woke up to find, thanks to both my mom and my dad, my canvas mounted in a scroll frame, ready for stitching. All I have left of the frame are the wooden side bars. 

Two new dowel sticks, some twill tape and I thought I'd be ready to try out the new linen in my treasured old scroll frame. It wasn't quite so straightforward. The original dowel sticks had been used for something else and were missing so I had no sample of the correct size. And the nuts and bolts on the side bars were solidly corroded in place. 

The local hardware store helped find suitable bolts and matching wing nuts. The dowel sticks were however either too big or too small. After much thought and consulting the trade catalogues, the conclusion was that the original ones might have been Imperial rather than metric sizes. We finally settled on a larger dowel. 

I plan to work some samples of pulled work and want to mount the whole piece of linen.  Much measuring and discussion later, my husband cut two lengths from the dowel stick long enough to accommodate the width of the linen. After sanding them they slipped snugly into the side bars. 

The next step was to attach cotton twill tape to the dowels. First idea was to use a hammer and small nails. But we couldn't bury the nail heads deeply enough. Thanks to google, my husband found a staple gun that looked like it would do the job. And it did.

It was easy to tap the staples well into the twill tape so they couldn't snag on the linen. Now I can mount my lovely fabric.

The experiment to resurrect my old scroll frame took longer than I expected, but I'm very pleased with the result. My dad would have been delighted with it.

'Till next time, happy stitching.