Expert: Henry Babcock - 1/2/2008

Question
HI I took my piece to have it framed and she stapled the entire piece before blocking it she then tore it off and the entire piece is torn for 7 rows around the piece. I had 2 inches and now have 10 rows she took scissors and chopped all the edges off the piece. This is a self designed piece i worked on for 3 years and a museum likes my work and this is destroyed. What can I do? Do I have to do it all over. How can I add canvas on all 4 edges and repair the 7 torn rows.

Answer
Paula,

How awful!  If this was a museum quality piece, perhaps there is legal recourse you can take to cover the cost of the repairs.

Barring that, you can undertake the repairs yourself, but it goes beyond the scope of this forum to provide detailed instructions of that type of work.  I suggest you consult a book called "The Needlework Doctor" by Mary Kay Davis.  You might find it at a library or online at eBay or Half.com.  She provides some detailed information of repairing torn canvases and merging canvases for larger pieces.  For your project, you will have to use some imagination to apply the techniques outlined in the book.

As I said before, it really goes beyond what I can describe here, but in a nutshell, you will probably have to remove the stitching about a half to a full inch back away from the torn area, then you will have to reweave new canvas into the old, un-stitched edge, finally stitch the area that was removed.

I hope this helps and wish you luck,

Henry Babcock
AllExperts Needlepoint Expert