Quick answer: Needlepoint framing in Mississauga should start with one rule: the piece gets sewn to a padded, fabric covered board, never glued to it. The Canadian Conservation Institute is direct about this. A textile belongs on a solid fabric covered support before it goes near a frame, and the mounting has to come apart later without harming a thread.
That one decision separates a piece your granddaughter can still hang in forty years from one that browns, buckles and locks itself to a sheet of adhesive film. Our workshop sits on Tomken Road near Derry Road in northeast Mississauga, and a fair share of what crosses the counter is needlework someone stitched themselves over months of evenings. Here is how we handle it.
Why must needlework be stitched to a support instead of glued?
Because adhesive is permanent and stitching is not.
Dry mounting bonds an item to a board with heat and an adhesive tissue. It is fast, it lies perfectly flat, and it is the correct answer for a poster. For a cross stitch sampler it is a one way door. The adhesive soaks between the linen threads, the heat sets it, and no conservator will ever get that piece off the board intact. Spray glue and double sided tape fail the same way, more slowly and more messily.
We do own a vacuum press that lays a thin protective film over a print so it can hang without glass. We use it on photographs and posters. We do not put needlework through it.
Conservation Framing of Embroideries and Other Flat Textiles, CCI Notes 13/17, states that textiles should be mounted onto a fabric covered solid support before they are framed, and that the method “provides overall support and is easily reversed without damaging the textile.” The same note lists glues, adhesive tapes and adhesive coated boards among the materials to keep away from an artifact. A stitched mount respects both points. Snip the thread and the piece lifts off.
Acidic backing is the slower version of the same mistake. Corrugated cardboard, kraft paper and untreated chipboard carry lignin, and lignin turns acidic as it ages. It shows first as a brown line exactly where the board edge sat, then as a tea coloured cast across the whole linen ground. Old needlework that arrives for frame repairs almost always has a cardboard backing and a rusted staple or two. Both come out.
How do we block and square a distorted piece before mounting?
Needlepoint pulls itself out of square as you stitch it. Tent stitch drags the canvas diagonally, and by the last row a piece that started as a rectangle has become a rhomboid. You cannot fix that by hauling it tight over a board and hoping the frame hides the difference. Blocking fixes it. This is the order we work in.
- Inspect and record. We check for loose threads, thin areas, old repairs and any dye that looks like it might run. The piece gets photographed before anything else happens.
- Surface clean only. A soft brush lifts dust. Freshly washed hands or nitrile gloves handle the work. Cotton gloves snag on loose fibres, so we skip them.
- Block it square. The piece is pinned face up on a covered board and eased back into shape so the warp and weft sit at right angles to each other, which is the alignment CCI Notes 13/6 calls for. It dries fully in that position. Wool and silk with questionable colourfastness get tested first or left unblocked.
- Cut the support. Mounting Small, Light, Flat Textiles, CCI Notes 13/6, says small textiles such as samplers can be supported on acid free 4 ply or 8 ply matboard. Small pieces get 4 ply. Anything wide enough to flex under its own weight gets 8 ply.
- Cover the board. The same note calls for a backing fabric of cotton or a cotton polyester blend, machine washed once and then run through two detergent free cycles to strip sizing and detergent residue. The fabric wraps the board and is secured on the back face only.
- Stitch the piece down. A fine straight or curved needle and colourfast thread anchor the outer edge. CCI Notes 13/6 specifies a herringbone stitch for frayed edges and a blind stitch for hemmed ones. The grain runs straight and parallel to the edges of the support.
Only after step six does anything go near a moulding. If a piece is badly distorted, brittle or already stained, we say so at the counter before we quote.
What backing, matting and glazing does a framed sampler need?
The stack matters as much as the stitching. Needlework is three dimensional. French knots, bullion stitches and raised satin work stand proud of the ground fabric, and glass laid straight onto them flattens the texture permanently. CCI Notes 13/17 puts it plainly: spacers hold the glazing slightly above the textile, which prevents the three dimensional quality of elements such as embroidery from becoming crushed. That gap also keeps condensation off the fibres when the wall runs cold.
There are two ways to get it. A clear spacer bar hidden under the rabbet lip, or a mat, sometimes doubled, thick enough that the window opening carries the glass clear of the tallest stitch. We usually prefer the mat, because it reads as a design choice rather than a fix.
| Layer | What we use | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Glazing | UV coated glass the owner describes as 99% UV coated, or non glare glass | Cuts the ultraviolet that fades dyes fastest |
| Air gap | Spacer bar or mat thickness, roughly 3 to 6 mm clear of the tallest stitch | Stops crushing and keeps condensation off thread |
| Window mat | 4 ply, doubled where the stitching is raised | Creates the gap and frames the stitched area |
| Mount board | Acid free 4 ply or 8 ply matboard per CCI Notes 13/6 | Stable, will not brown the linen |
| Cover fabric | Prewashed cotton or cotton polyester | Gives the needle something to bite without sizing residue |
| Attachment | Colourfast thread, herringbone or blind stitch | Fully reversible with a pair of snips |
| Backing and seal | Stable board, taped where it meets the frame | Slows dust and insects entering the package |
| Moulding | Rabbet deep enough for the whole stack | A shallow rabbet forces the glass down onto the stitches |
Rabbet depth is the quiet item on that list. The rabbet is the recess inside the moulding that swallows glass, mats, mount and backing. Plenty of decorative profiles in our picture frames range have a rabbet sized for a photograph, not for a spacer plus two mats plus an 8 ply board. We measure the stack first, then choose the moulding.
How much light can a framed needlework piece take?
Less than most people expect, and the damage never reverses.
The Canadian Conservation Institute’s guidelines for caring for textiles and costumes put numbers on it. For a textile of medium sensitivity to fading, displayed without UV filtering, noticeable fading arrives on this schedule.
| Light level | Typical setting | Time to noticeable fading |
|---|---|---|
| 50 lux | Deliberately dim display lighting | 7 to 140 years |
| 150 lux | Softly lit interior wall | 2 to 40 years |
| 500 lux | Office lighting | 8 months to 14 years |
| 30,000 lux | Average daylight | 5 days to 10 weeks |
Fifty lux is the conservation benchmark for sensitive textiles. One hundred and fifty lux suits work of medium sensitivity. The same guidance asks that ultraviolet be held to 75 microwatts per lumen or less, and that fragile textiles be displayed for limited periods, three months being the example given.
Translate that into a Mississauga living room. A sampler on a north facing interior wall in Malton is fine for decades. The same sampler hung opposite a west facing window in Meadowvale is measured in seasons. UV coated glass buys real time, and it is the upgrade we push hardest on hand stitched work, but glass cannot cancel visible light. Placement still does most of the job.
One more line from CCI Notes 13/17: do not attach light fixtures to the frame itself, because they produce excessive light levels in localized spots. We do sell LED lit frames with a remote control. They belong on a print, not on your grandmother’s cross stitch.
Bring your needlework to Tomken Road
Bring the piece in flat if you can and rolled if you must. Never folded. We will look at the distortion, the fibre, the raised areas and the edges, then talk through mount, mat depth and glazing before anything gets cut. Full detail on the service sits on our needlepoint and cross stitch framing page, and the wider custom picture framing page covers moulding, matting and glazing across everything else we frame. You can also request a quote with photos and measurements before you drive over.
Supreme Pictures
7025 Tomken Rd Unit 4, Mississauga, ON L5S 1R6
Phone: (905) 956-7400
Hours: Monday to Friday 10:30 AM to 7:00 PM; Saturday 10:30 AM to 5:00 PM; Sunday closed
Frequently asked questions
Can you frame needlepoint without stitching it, using tape or glue?
We will not. Adhesive soaks between linen threads and sets permanently, so the piece can never be removed intact. The Canadian Conservation Institute recommends mounting textiles onto a fabric covered solid support by a method that reverses without damage. Hand stitching with colourfast thread does that. Tape and dry mounting do not.
Does the glass have to sit off the stitches?
Yes. Glass resting directly on needlework crushes French knots and raised satin stitch flat, and it traps condensation against the fibres. We create a gap of roughly 3 to 6 mm using either a hidden spacer bar or a mat thick enough to carry the glazing clear of the tallest stitch.
My cross stitch is pulled out of square. Can it still be framed?
Usually, yes. Blocking pins the piece face up on a covered board and eases the warp and weft back to right angles, then it dries in that position. We test questionable dyes first. Stretching a distorted piece tight over a board instead only hides the problem and stresses the threads.
Why does old needlework have a brown line around the edge?
That is acid burn from the backing. Corrugated cardboard, kraft paper and untreated chipboard contain lignin, which turns acidic with age and stains the fabric it touches, starting at the board edge. We remove the old backing during a reframe and replace it with acid free board.
Where should a framed sampler hang in the house?
On an interior wall away from direct sun. Canadian Conservation Institute figures show a medium sensitivity textile fading noticeably in 5 days to 10 weeks at average daylight levels of 30,000 lux, compared with 2 to 40 years at 150 lux. UV coated glass helps, but placement matters more.
