How to hang a tapestry

Most Kiwis have probably never seen a large tapestry, certainly not one in the style of 16th-17th France. I've seen and admired so many hanging in museums and chateaux in France. Jean-Claude had stored a hand-made tapestry, made by his mother over the span of two years, in his attic. He decided to give it to me as he knows how much I appreciate French history and culture. But, how to get it to me? He realised he should have thought to give it to me when I was organising my move back to NZ in 2017. We both knew that trying to send it in it's framed form would now be prohibitively expensive. 

The decision was made to take it off its mounting frame (not an easy task given the length of time it had been mounted by JC's DIY skills), have it cleaned and then post it to me in a standard international posting box. The tapestry had been superbly needlepointed in wool and was flawless so I was thrilled. I knew I wanted it in my bedroom. Hardly able to contain my excitement, I waited for the process of getting it to me to be completed.

I asked a neighbour with a fair amount of DIY skills to make me a stretcher frame so I could staple the frame around it and attach it onto the back. He did a nice job of smoothing the frame and we laid the tapestry out onto it but no matter how hard we tried it would not fit. It was no longer rectangular and even. Horrors, the cleaning process had deformed it.

I sought advice from a picture framer who said they could try to stretch the canvas back to being where it should be. First they would build a stretcher frame, then stretch the canvas over the 40mm thick stretcher but, of course the edges folded around would be visibly tatty. I would then have to purchase a  thick custom frame and hope my walls could withstand the massive weight. If you are rich or a museum this is what you would do. I could see a bill of $2000 looming and there would be no garantee it would be  back to right-angles. I also felt it would look too massive for my furniture and the rest of the room. Feeling dejected I left.

Determined to find a solution, I discussed my problem with a Canterbury quilt-maker. She came up with an affordable solution to protect and hang the tapestry but could she get it back in shape? Not completely, she said, as it was badly deformed.

This job was outside her normal expertise but she was willing to try to make it work. It was my last hope. Many weeks later, after misting the tapestry with water and pinning it to her dining room carpet to encurage it to shrink back into shape, reinforcing the damaged canvas edges which were now fraying, and sewing a backing material onto it through which wood slats could be threaded, I arrived to collect my completed wall tapestry.

She had done a great job with the sewing but when I got it home I discovered there was little improvement in the deformation. It was still badly skew-iff by 10 cms with a somewhat buckled surface. My tapestry was now a parallelogram and it could never be stretched in any direction as it was sewn permanently in place. A crushing disappointment that annoys me but I have had to adjust my sense of aesthetics and just appreciate that it was lovely once and still retains some sentimental value to me.

Hanging it was also a mission. Trying to hang something so large with only two of you to do it is really difficult, especially when it is visually deformed to start with. My neighbour and I were tempted to rush the hanging process and consequently it fell down. I was using heavyweight 3M command strips. Instructions say you should leave the backing strips on the wall at least an hour before reattaching the front strips. It works if you do not skimp on this. There are 4 command strips across the back wooden slat along the top edge. It has not been necessary to insert the bottom slat to make it hang flat as it will never be flat and, being sewn into posisiton, will never stretch again. 

What a learning curve:

1. Do NOT dryclean/wash a woollen tapestry. Just vacuum it and hope it cleans up.

2. Do not put any glue on when mounting on a wooden frame as it will be impossible to prevent canvas damage when removing it to post.

3. Unless you are rich, forget about framing your tapestry. Some can be hung over a rod but if it is a raw canvas with raw backing edges which are fraying you need to fold it over and hide the edges so sewing on a backing is necessary.

4. Find a seamstress who will not baulk at the task.