Och aye!

Create a Post
CAframer

CAframer

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Joined
Nov 19, 2003
Posts
3,834
Loc
Orange County, CA
'tis a tartan mat, the noo!

Bagpiper.jpg
 
Wonderful job, Andrew. I know how difficult wrapping with tartan can be - trying to get all those lines straight :icon45:!!!

How long did it take you to wrap the mat? Did you lay the fabric on while the glue was wet or let the glue dry and then heat re-activate it? When I wrapped with tartan, I found it easier to let the glue dry and then I ironed on the fabric.
 
Baer Charlton said:
a little pulled to the right along the top there Andrew. :D

excellent work. Now..... can you do that in an oval?
Click to expand...

It does look a little pulled at the top in the photo, and yet my recollection is that it looked fine in reality! Who knows ...this was a rush job and I was only able to take one quick photo before it was picked up; the photo wasn't the best and had to be skewed in Photoshop to make it look rectangular.

Hmmm .... I might try an oval just for the heck of it! :) As it happens this same customer had me frame an 1888 oval print of Burns ... she had thought about using tartan for it but decided it would overpower the print so we went another route.

Twin2 said:
How long did it take you to wrap the mat? Did you lay the fabric on while the glue was wet or let the glue dry and then heat re-activate it? When I wrapped with tartan, I found it easier to let the glue dry and then I ironed on the fabric.
Click to expand...

Not too long! As mentioned, this was something of a rush job as it was a gift and they had a plane to catch!

I've done several tartans but this one was a bit trickier than others I have done. On previous occasions I have been using real tartan, usually brought back from a vacation trip. The real stuff is far less stretchy than what I had to use this time around ... this time it was a bit of cheap plaid fabric from JoAnns. It really was pretty darned stretchy! And that added a bit of time, as I'll describe below.

Here's one I did a while back with genuine Scottish tartan, It features a watercolor of the ancestoral home plus the family crest.
IMG_0915.jpg



With any patterned fabric, including tartans, I like to work backwards compared to how I usually wrap a mat. Normally, of course, the mat is pasted and the fabric is laid on top, but with a tartan I work the other way up...

First I pin the fabric face down to a sheet of foamcore. Adjustments are made so the lines on the back of the fabric are straight .. usually this goes pretty quick, but with a stretchy fabric it takes a bit longer. Fabric adhesive is pasted on the mat. The mat is then placed on the fabric using the lines on the back of the fabric as the guide. Press it down. Flip it over. Pop in the fall out. Stick it in the press for 5 minutes or so. Finish it up as normal. Pretty easy really.
 
Thanks, Andrew. That other tartan mat is great too. I love the combination of the blue suede and the tartan - the suede gives the eye 'a rest' between the tartan and watercolor & crest. Nice work!
 
Create a Post
Back
Top