It's here! At long last, I have my new Japanese embroidery frame, and it is beautiful!
The color is lighter than I expected, but I love it, and I adore the satiny acrylic finish on the long warp bars - the wood is silky smooth. The split dowels and threaded dowels are unfinished and still sanded fairly smooth, but I'm really glad I got the custom finish on the warp bars. Besides the beautiful look and feel, another benefit to the finish is that oils from my hands won't get on the warp bars and then accidentally transfer to my fabric. I kind of wish the split dowels were also finished, but there may be a reason they don't finish those — perhaps they wouldn't grip the fabric as well if they were finished. But I really have no idea.
One thing I did not realize was how far apart those split dowels are. A good 22 inches! And sadly, the muslin fabric I had first prepared for this goldwork embroidery project was not nearly long enough. So I prepared another piece of muslin about 28" long, but it turned out to not be long enough either. You really need a good six inches extra on each side so that you can rotate the split dowels and wrap the fabric around them to get it really taut. So I sewed the two pieces together and trimmed off the extra foot. It was about 36" long when done, and that finally seemed sufficient.
Another thing I did not realize is that you're supposed to sew the fabric through the holes in the warp bars rather than around the bars, like on a slate frame. But the holes are tiny, so my giant slate frame lacing needle and thick lacing string will not work. Maybe it would be okay to treat the frame like a slate frame for this goldwork project and just sew around the bars, but I'm a little hesitant since I'm unfamiliar with this frame and don't know if that could have any negative effect.
Upon looking more closely at my Japanese embroidery book, it turns out I should use a #3 milliner's needle and special Japanese lacing thread to lace the fabric to the frame through the holes. (There's really very little online about how to set up a Japanese embroidery frame, which is frustrating.) I have the needle, and I just ordered the thread from the Japanese Embroidery Center (JEC). But my last order from them took a while, so this project is once again on hold until I get all the materials I need.
However, I have no shortage of projects to work on. So it's back to my whitework sampler:
I'm halfway done. At this point, I've done 8 squares of pulled thread designs. Even though it was fun to learn these stitches and some of them are really beautiful, I am thoroughly tired of pulled thread work and very excited to move on to other whitework techniques. I'm thinking of trying some eyelets next. I also have a long list of people who want lace bookmarks, so I'm trying to do a little bit of lace each day, even if it's only 20 minutes or so.
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