A Stitch in Time

This Chinese Silk Wall Hanging is interesting in both the construction and as an example of how much stitch support can achieve on its own with regards to the displayability of the piece.​

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It is common practice with textiles of this sort that when they are constructed, they have a front and a back panel with an interlayer to give it some rigidity - and that interlayer is paper.  Given the condition issues of abraded and torn areas, as well as snapped yarns and lifting embroidery, an ideal approach would have been to humidify the object to allow all of the fibers to relax and more easily realign.  Due to the paper, this was impossible.  Not only could moisture cause the paper to warp, it could also cause dye bleed issues if there was any printing on the paper (old newspaper is a common choice).

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Given that limitation, I decided to use a handheld cool mist steamer to quickly relax small areas as I worked on them.  Once the fibers were relaxed, I was able to realign them and stitch them into place to a fabric backing.  As the textile was to be framed, the addition of stable fabric behind the piece would not be seen.