In February, I got a bonus at work and decided to spend part of it on some trestles or a stand to hold my embroidery frame. Up to that point, I had been using two TV trays, with yoga blocks balanced on them to get the frame at the right height. This setup was, to say the least, not very stable. I, or some visitor to my home, invariably knocked it down and sent my frame tumbling about once a week.
So I decided it was time to save my sanity and my silk embroidery and splurge on a solid stand built for the purpose. I had waited quite a while because JE is an expensive hobby already, and a nice set of trestles costs upwards of $300.
I debated for months between a traditional JE stand or regular embroidery trestles. In the end, I decided the trestles were more versatile because they would offer me the option to tilt my frame. And while I don't want to tilt it for JE, I would almost certainly want to do that for larger surface embroidery projects. So trestles would work for all of my different types of embroidery.
I ordered this lovely, custom set of cherry wood trestles from T. F. Woodcraft (from whom I had also bought a very nice slate frame last year):
The estimated time frame for creating them was 4-6 weeks (though the website has now revised this to 3-4 weeks), but to my great delight, mine were done and shipped in 2 weeks. And it only took about a week for them to arrive. Here's a side view so you can see the lovely details:They were $325 (with free shipping), but beautifully made, exquisitely finished, and well worth it. I will admit, though, that the assembly was a bit tricky. There were no instructions, sketches, or pictures; there were just little numbers all over the pieces that had to be matched together. Initially, I faced the numbers towards each other and screwed things in. But this gave me two identical trestles (instead of two mirror-image trestles), and a couple of the feet were on the wrong sides as well.So I gave up on strictly following the numbers and just figured it out based on how I thought it should look. This worked better, and I ended up with two mirror-image trestles with everything facing the right direction. My top bars are technically on upside down, but that's because I won't be tilting this piece, so I don't need that little piece of wood standing up to hold the edge of the frame. And I was concerned it might get in the way of this particular frame.
Once I got the trestles to the right height, which took a lot of measuring and tiny adjustments, they worked pretty well. But there was still a tendency for the frame to move dramatically or jostle if I bumped it since it's just resting on top of the trestles. While the frame didn't completely fall off, I wanted a little more stability. So I purchased some ball bungee cords (for $8 on Amazon) and used them to attach the corners of the frame to the trestles:
These little bungee cords gently but securely hold each corner of the frame to the stand, which has made the whole thing much more sturdy and stable. Here's the entire setup, in all its glory:It's lovely and marvelous and works very well for me. And it takes up much less space in my small living room than the two tv trays. I still have one tv tray set up to the side to hold all my accessories, books, and instructions. But the trestles are just less obtrusive and more elegant overall. I'm so happy I ordered them. 😊
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