Stitching Frames/Stands

There was a comment and a couple of emails asking about my stands. Since I don’t live near a shop and even for those of you who do, they may not have a bunch of stands/frames you can try. I find it really hard to know what I’m going to like when it comes to a frame or stand until I try it for a while. I’ve bought a couple of lap stands but the main stands I like are the Rolaframe and the Lowery.

There are several shops around the country that sell Rolaframe. I was very confused when I was purchasing mine so I’ll go into more detail than most of you probably need.

The shop where I currently have the best luck is A Stitch in Time in Jacksonville, FL. They ship almost instantly and for the most part, they seem to use UPS, at least to my area, and that’s much better for me than USPS.

The Rolaframe has floor stands and lap stands.

When I ordered the floor frame, I was using it sitting in a dining room chair and the narrow size was fine but once I wanted to stitch from the recliner and it was too narrow – I couldn’t put the legs on either side of the recliner so I was able to order a longer bar so it would fit over the recliner. I simply unscrewed the shorter bar and replaced it with the longer bar which simply made the legs farther apart.

In the above picture, you can see all the little dog fences we have set up. The white one is in Rita’s area. The brown one is to keep Oscar off the carpet and away from my stitching when we aren’t in the room with him.

You can see all the little holes in the stand. There are so many size configurations that will work . . long frame, short frame, wide frame, narrow frame.

As far as frames, you order the roller bars to whatever size you want. The fabric is attached to these (fitted onto sharp little nails) and then rolled to position. It looks like they come anywhere from 5″ to 45″. Say you’re working on a piece that’s 18″ wide by 36″ long and you want to work top to bottom. You would need at least an 18″ wide. I buy roller bars that are sizes I use often. Of course, if you think 20″ is the size you will use often, the next project you pick up is going to be 21″ wide.

Shown above is the roller bar. That is a 13″ roller bar and the 13″ measurements is the area between the end bars so in theory, you could put a 13″ wide piece of fabric on a 13″ roller bar. It would be right up against the edge of the end bars so I would recommend working with at least an extra inch on each side.

Then there are the end bars. Those start at 7″ and go up to 22″. The thing to think about is . . how far do you want to be reaching to stitch. Yes, if I’m stitching the vertical border, It’s nice to be able to stitch 20″ without having to roll but my arms just aren’t long enough, especially when sitting back in a chair with my feet propped up. My preference for end bars is 10″ to 12″ but everyone is different.

The Rolaframe roller bars have the tiniest, sharpest nails and you mount your fabric on those nails. It’s easy to do and easy to get straight but those nails are sharp so be very careful and don’t mash down accidentally on one of those with your finger.

You can see that on the end bars, there are two sets of holes for the bars to fit into. That is a 9″ end bar and that measurement is from end to end. The outermost holes are about 7-1/2″ apart. With the bar inserted in those holes, you have about 6″ of working space.

If using the Rolaframe stand, either lap or floor model, the length of the frame isn’t an issue so long as it fits in the size stand you have.

My preference for a stand is the Lowery stand with the Rolaframe frame. It’s so portable and so easy to move around. The longer the frame, the more unsteady the Lowery frame becomes. Several readers sent me pictures of a little gizmo they made that is wooden and connects to the stand, then your frame sits on top of the wooden gizmo and that makes it more sturdy but Vince has yet to make one for me.

The Frank Edmonds Split Rail Scroll Frames are not great (they wood is a bit rough and they aren’t as easy to load as are the Rolaframe frames but the Edmonds frames are fairly inexpensive (12″, 18″ and 26″ – all three, along with two sets of end bars – 6″ and 9″ for each for $26.) These are not the first frames I reach for but I do not mind them at all if all my Rolaframe frames are loaded with something else. For me to buy a 26″ Rolaframe roller and a 9″ end bar, the cost would be $69 so getting the 26″ roller and 9″ end frame from Edmonds isn’t a bad deal.

You know how I am . . it wouldn’t matter if I had 50 frame sets, they would all be full and I would need more.

Vonna Pfeiffer has a nice post here about Rolaframes and she has several frames ranked here.

My advice:

1. If you want to try a frame, check out the Lowery at Love Crafts. Watch for sales. It hasn’t been but a couple of years ago since I bought mine and they weren’t nearly that much then.
2. Order a decent set of scroll frames. Read the reviews and make sure not many people are saying they do not hold your fabric tight. Once you get the fabric loaded and roll it a couple of times, I don’t really see how it won’t hold the fabric tight but read everything you can about them before you order them.
3. The Rolaframe stands and scroll frames are top of the line in my opinion but they’re pricey.

Like I said earlier, my favorite setup is the Lowery stand and the Rolaframe frames.

PLEASE . . if anyone has advice about other stands/frames, share it here.