Mounting a Landscape Embroidery

Earlier this year, just before COVID hit, I finished a landscape embroidery I had been doing based on the following picture, which my sister-in-law Antoniya took at a ski resort in Stowe, VT:

Since it's based off her photo and is one of her favorite places to go, I thought it would be nice to give this piece to Antoniya for Christmas — shhhh! (I'm reasonably confident she doesn't read my blog, so it should be fine to say it here. And anyway, she's already seen the piece and really liked it.)

To get the piece ready for framing, I cut out a piece of foam board a little larger than the landscape embroidery (roughly an inch larger on all sides) and a piece of cotton flannel a little larger than that (about an inch an a half larger than the foam board on all sides). I then cut off the corners and attached the flannel with double-stick tape to the back side of the foam board:

This gave me a smooth, very lightly padded surface on the front side, which is just a little more forgiving if you have bunches of thread from hiding stitches on the back of your embroidery:

Then, because I had stitched this piece on some stretchy linen that is inclined to warp, I sewed some Kona cotton strips to each edge (Kona cotton is pretty sturdy and can hold up under tight lacing):

These ended up being a bit too wide and I had to trim them down a little. But that done, I went ahead and laced the top and bottom pieces and then the two sides:

I did the first two sides using the shoelace method, starting at one end and lacing to the other, as described in another post I did on Lacing, Stretching, and Mounting. (That post also includes more detailed step-by-step guidance on this whole process, just with fewer pictures.) I did a similar method on the last two sides, but I started in the middle and laced to one end and then went back to the middle and laced to the other end. (Mary Corbet recommends this method.)

I just wanted to see how it would go to try something different. Either method worked about as well as the other. Depending on the method, it was variously harder to get the fabric even at different spots — sometimes on one end, sometimes in the middle. But with enough patience, I managed to get this piece laced fairly evenly in both directions and relatively smooth on the front side:

I'm not concerned about the corners of the fabric being cut off because I don't intend for much of the white to show through. I regrettably stored a needle in the fabric while stitching this piece and it caused some small rust spots, which, try as I might, I couldn't get rid of. So I will want the mats to cover up most of the fabric outside the stitched border. (I now use a needle minder so I don't have this problem.)

This afternoon, I will take this down to The Attic Needlework to have them frame it up so I can send it to Antoniya in time for Christmas. It's a wrench for me to give up my embroidery (particularly my landscape embroideries, which take such a long time to complete), but alas, I have no more wall space left, so I am facing this loss with grim determination. I console myself with the thought that it will hopefully give joy to someone besides me. And when I visit, it will be nice to see it hanging in Chris and Antoniya's charming house. I think it will go well with their color scheme. 😊