Victoria,

Please allow me to enlighten you a wee bit.

With the old style scroll frames one rolled their ground fabric off of one
dowel onto the other dowel as they stitched. The old scroll dowels often had
a habit of loosening up and rotating slightly thereby often allowing the
ground fabric to loosen up. The twill tape stapled to the dowel often sagged
between the staples allowing the ground fabric to get wavy and distorted as
one stitched, especially when doing basket weave or continental stitches.
Stitching ground fabric onto the twill tape and getting it on straight was a
pain for a lot of people, plus if one wanted to change ones' fabric and work
on something else mid project one had to rip out the stitches holding the
fabric to the twill tape. Then stitch on the new piece of fabric.

Some people taped their fabric to the dowels only to have the tape dry out
and fall off or worse, gum up the fabric. All of this results in distortion
to the ground fabric by the time the project is finished. The hook and eye
(Velcro?) method was an improvement over the twill tape but one always needs
to buy a new piece to glue onto the new ground fabric when changing from one
project to another - one usually needs it on a dark and stormy night when
all the LNS are closed. LOL!

However the old style scroll frames are cheap - or - are they???

Professional framers have a hidden or visible charge on their invoices for
professional blocking with costs ranging from $60 to $80 as it can take up
to 3 weeks to get the distortion out. Removal of masking tape glue is extra.
A 3-day blocking effort by an unprofessional may look good for a while but
the tension/distortion in the fabric returns causing the fabric to move in
the finished frame and is very noticeable along the mat edge where it meets
the fabric.

The Stitch Away fabric mount uses an entirely different approach to holding
ground fabric and one does NOT crush stitched fabric under the white fabric
retaining bars because there will be no stitches there to crush. On the home
page at http://www.stitchaway.com you will see a ballerina project on a
C1622A model Stitch Away Fabric Mount. Visualize for the moment that the
ballerina has *NOT* being stitched on to the ground fabric yet. Now what you
see is a blank piece of 16" x 24" ground fabric mounted on the fabric mount
READY for stitching.

There really is no top, bottom, left or right designations to the fabric
mount (one can hold the fabric mount right side up, upside down or in the
landscape position and stitch) but let us refer to the end with the tension
adjusting knobs as the top. The white fabric retaining bars (upper & lower)
secure the *vertical* threads of the blank ground fabric into grooves in the
upper and lower fabric supports. There is no need for tape, staples or
tacks. The left and right side rails of the fabric mount help protect the
fabric from fraying - no basting/sticky tape required.

You will see the head of a small peg on each side of the fabric mount near
the bottom. These pegs stop the lower fabric support from moving upward,
(more on that later). The fabric tension knobs at the top cause the upper
fabric support to move upward, applying tension in the fabric and as the
white fabric retaining bars have secured the *vertical* threads in the
fabric evenly (left to right) the *vertical* tension in the fabric is the
same on the left as it is on the right. Now you mark the center of your
fabric. The fabric mount is very light and you can hold the fabric mount in
hand, attach it to floor stand, use a ribbon easel holding the fabric mount
on your lap or lean the fabric mount against a table either in the portrait
or landscape position and STITCH AWAY!!!

More on the stop pegs.

Let us say you wanted to attach a 16" x 16" instead of the 16" x 24" piece
of ground fabric. There are a series of holes drilled about 1" apart in the
fabric mount side rails (you can't see these holes on the web site). You
place the upper edge of your ground fabric into the upper fabric support
with a white fabric-retaining bar. You remove the stop pegs, move the lower
fabric support up towards the center to a position that will allow the lower
end of the ground fabric to enter the lower fabric support groove, place the
lower edge of your fabric into the lower fabric support with a white fabric
retaining bar, insert the stop pegs into a new set of holes in the side
rails to prevent any further upward travel of the lower fabric support.
Rotate the fabric tension knobs. This will cause the upper fabric support to
move upwards until you have the desired tension in your fabric. Now you mark
the center of your fabric and STITCH AWAY!

Geeeesh! I can attach ground fabric faster than I can type instructions as
to how to do it. BTW I saw a 70-year old woman who had a severe case of
arthritis attach her fabric in less than a minute and that is even faster
than I can do it.

Let us say you wanted to attach a 16" x 30" instead of the 16" x 24" piece
of ground fabric and you don't want to cut it to length. You want to save
the extra length to help out the framer. You place the upper edge of your
ground fabric into the upper fabric support with a white fabric-retaining
bar. You lay the bottom portion of the fabric across the lower fabric
support and press in the lower fabric-retaining bar. You let the excess
fabric hang over the bottom or if it is really long just roll it up and
secure it out of the way with an elastic band. Rotate the fabric tension
knobs. This will cause the upper fabric support to move upwards until you
have the desired tension in your fabric. Now you mark the center of your
fabric and STITCH AWAY!

The instructions for doing bell pulls are too long to post here but I can
assure you there is *NO* way that stitched ground fabric ever gets crushed
under a white fabric-retaining bar. It is kind of hard to explain but when
one is doing bell pulls, as one progresses, the stitched fabric is rolled
*over top* of the lower fabric support and lower fabric-retaining bar and is
out of the way.

Hey! The Stitch Away fabric mount may not be for every one but as far as I
know they work well for everyone who has ever purchased one because I have
never had one returned for *ANY* reason in the 5 years they have been on the
market. It makes me wonder why I advertise a 28-day purchase price return
guarantee and a full year repair or replacement warrantee for material and
workmanship.

I have been able to make needle workers in England, Ireland, Australia,
China, Japan, Canada and three quarters of the good old United States of
America happy so I'm happy!! Plus making the fabric mounts keeps me out of
my DWs' hair. LOL!

Hey! Don't take my word for it. Go visit Tia Mary and Janet at Stitcher's
World or go visit the Lincoln center for the arts and see the STITCH AWAY
fabric mounts in action!

Happy stitching!

Fred
http://www.stitchaway.com

If you are on thin ice
you might as well dance!

W.I.P. - "Fiddler on the Roof".
W.I.L., "Romantic Venice",
"Ocean Princess", "Southwest Charm",
"Rainbow Trail", "Indian Pottery", "One Earth",
"Spirit of the Full Moon"
and "+?", "+?", "+?".

"animaux" wrote in message
...
On 20 Sep 2003 19:19:15 GMT, ekoluvr (Tia Mary-remove
nekoluvr to reply ) opined:


This won't surprise anyone but I recommend the FANTASTIC StitchAway
Fabric
Mount! BIg surprise, huh?? There is absolutely *nothing* on the market
that
is easier to use AND keeps your needlework fabric as tight as you want
for as
long as you want. Here's Fred's website http://www.stitchaway.com .
The
standard NAYY applies -- just a VERY happy and satisfied customer :-))).
CiaoMeow ^;;^

I didn't see what the sizes are of this fabric mount system. It does look
interesting and easy to use. When you move along on the work and have to
press
already stitched areas into the frame, does it do anything to the
stitches?

I have a K's Creation Perfect Tension frame, but plan to upgrade to the
new
plastic tension clamps so I can use other size side bars. It can be seen
he

http://www.kscreations.com/acc_perfecttension.htm

I like this very much since I like my fabric tight as a drum.