A New Stitching Stand

If you’re a cross stitcher, then you surely know Vonna Pfeiffer. Back in April, I watched this video by Vonna about a new stitching frame that a friend’s husband had made and incorporated all of Vonna’s requests for the perfect stitching stand.

I had Vince watch it with me and he agreed that it seemed to be a well made, well designed stand. I ended up ordering it and it arrived Friday. I had a bit of stitching time Friday and more stitching time Saturday. I love this stand! Vonna and Dave (the guy who made it – probably with some help from his wife, Joanie) have created an amazing stand.

This is the stand. It’s very sturdy but not too heavy to comfortably sit on my lap. I’ll do a bit of compare and contrast with the other stands I had been using and discuss why I love this new stand so much.

These are the two stands I had been using and I liked them but with Oscar and Cooper wanting to sit as close to me as they can, these stands were creating some issues. What you’re seeing in the above photo are a medium and large stand. The base has an “expansion” on each side – “slide outs” more or less – and the frame has to fit within that area. When the extensions were all the way out, they take up a lot of space and the stitching area is pretty much in a fixed spot. If I had something very long in the frame and I am working on the far right side, the left side was propped up on the arm of the sofa so the whole thing was cockeyed. If I was stitching on the far left side, then the base and the frame was all to my right and the entire time I was stitching, the dogs were trying to figure out how to get closer to me but the stand is in their way.

A bigger issue for me was that the frames are screwed into the stand. It’s not a huge issue but every time I wanted to switch projects, I had to unscrew the frame on each side from the stand, then screw in the new frame, which meant there were often times I felt like working on something for a couple of days but didn’t want to deal with installing it in the stand.

With the new stand, the stitching frame fits on the pegs at the end of the “arms”. The arms can be moved across the base and will hold even the smallest hoop or the largest scroll rods. The “slides” on the new frame never extend past the base that sits on my lap.

You can see how the frame sits on the pegs. Nothing to be screwed or clamped. If I’m working on something long, I can move the frame in either directions. For me to stitch comfortably, the arms, and thus the frame sitting on the arms, are high enough that the dogs can sleep under the frames, as close to me as they would like.

It’s so easy to pick up the frame and flip it over to get to the back side. With the previous frames, I had to loosen the two screws, move the magnifying lamp back, flip the frame up, do whatever I had to do on the back side, flip it back, screw it back in and continue. With the new stand, I don’t have to mess with the screws or moving the light. I simply lift the frame off the pegs, and flipping it over, making sure to clear the light – easy!

Last night I had worked my way over to an area where the arm was kinda bumping up against the stand’s arm so I extended the arm farther out and it was perfect. Also, with the arms farther apart, my laptop sits perfectly on the base of the stand – my own little desk.. Before, I would have to get up and put the stand and frame on the floor if I wanted to use the computer.

It really is as simple as picking up the frame, that isn’t attached to anything, setting it aside and resting another project/frame onto the pegs when I want to change projects.

The arms that hold the pegs are adjustable so you can raise and lower your stitching area so you get it exactly where you want to be working. Also, there are adjustable feet that can be installed on the bottom, which will raise the back side of the stand to create whatever angle you’d like to be stitching on the frame. For now, I’m not installing the feet. Vonna keeps hers sitting on a wooden lap stand but I have my stand sitting on my lap. I can always install the feet and use a wooden lap stand if I feel the need to do that.

For anyone interested in getting this stand, you can contact Dave or Joanie via email. I wrote back and forth to Joanie several times and she was very easy to deal with and very accommodating.

And, you’ll be proud of Oscar. As of this writing, according to Joanie, Oscar has the record time for chewing up part of the stand within the first hour of its arrival. I had it sitting on the ottoman, walked across the room to grab a frame and heard crunch! Oh, no! He chewed the end off one of the pegs that the frames sit on.

I could hardly fuss at him because it looks so much like one of his chew sticks! I ordered new pegs because, as much as I think this will never happen again . . you know Oscar! Joanie did say that this wasn’t the first disaster with a destructive pet and their frames. I assured Joanie that I can still use it til I get a new pegs but it makes me sad that it isn’t pretty right now.

Vonna really put a lot of thought into this stand and Dave and Joanie did a great job of executing Vonna’s ideas.