Last week a customer turned up with seven framed textile pictures which had been framed at a shop where a framing service was offered, but which was not done on the premises. She was not happy. She said the mounts and frames did not suit the pictures, which had great sentimental value for her, and she was so disappointed that she hadn’t been able to put them up on the wall.
Unhappy and upset
I took one of them to pieces. Not only was the frame made of plastic, when she had been told that it was wood, but the precious textile had been literally stuck with self-adhesive brown tape to a piece of tatty old card, which definitely was not pH-neutral, with double-sided self-adhesive tape being stuck on the textile to the mount. I was astounded. The customer said that she had explained how precious the items were to her, as they had been made by her Great Aunt who was now sadly deceased.
Bad practice!
When I took all the others to pieces, there was a variety of ways in which they had each been stuck in the frames; one had been taped with brown self-adhesive tape to the back of the mount, which resulted in the rippling of the textile; one had been stuck down onto a piece of old board with spraymount (!); one had pieces of tape stuck down wily-nily; and all of them had double-sided tape sticking the textile to the mount.
It was a lesson in bad practice! None of them had been stretched and no conservation materials had been used at all.
Good practice!
So, we went through the process of choosing complementary coloured mounts for each textile picture, and choosing frames which suited each little picture the best. All our mountboards are pH-neutral, and we use pH-neutral foamcore when we stretch textiles.
Conservation materials are used so that there will be no further deterioration by acid onto the items being framed. The textiles were exquisitely done with fantastic detail, such as the reflection of a swan on the water. They really were lovely heirloom pieces. We used pH-neutral foamcore and tapestry pins to stretch and secure each textile, (as shown in the photo), so that they lay flat within the frame, with materials which would not cause any future damage.
Then we used ph-Neutral mountboard with conservation glass in each frame.
Happy, confident and satisfied
When the customer came in to collect the finished products, she said that they were exactly as she had imagined them being framed in the first place!
Plus also, she had the knowledge that nothing within the frame was going to damage her textile 
pictures in the future. Job well done and another happy customer!
