Trammed Tapestry

from The Tapestry Kit Collection

Three ranges of trammed tapestry canvases are available:

Ivo Tapestry	Beverley Needlepoint	Julia Hickman's Stitchery

Tramme work is carried out on carried out on DUO (or Penelope) canvas which has two sets of warp and weft threads which produce one set of small and one of large holes.  The design is stitched onto the canvas using horizontal stitches of varying lengths and colours, in two ply of normal 4 ply tapestry wool.  The stitcher then simply uses tent stitch over the horizontal lines with the tramme stitches acting as a completely accurate guide as to the colour and number of stitches required.

The advantages of trammed work are that the precise locations of all colours are clearly shown by the tramming so there is never any doubt about where one colour finishes and another begins as is the case with many printed canvases. Trammed canvases are also harder wearing as there is an additional layer of wool under the design part of canvas. The stitcher can also tramme the background areas in order to produce an even longer wearing finish.  For these reasons, trammed tapestries are very suitable for furniture or other applications where hard wear is expected. Tramming is an old technique which is know to have been used in Medieval times.

Today the finest quality trammed tapestries are stitched on the Portuguese island of Madeira, the recognized world centre for this type of needlework and where the art has been passed down through countless generations of skilled stitchers.   Due to the the fact that all trammed canvases are individually produced, they can cost a little more than conventional printed canvases.

Please Note : All of the trammed canvases shown on our website are produced in Madeira using top quality materials.

Some sophisticated trammed canvas have small areas pre-worked in petit point to bring out details in the design. Petit point is worked as the canvas is beng trammed by using the DUO canvas as a conventional weave canvas so each stitch is quarter the normal size.

Choosing your background colour

Most trammed canvases are supplied with the wool for the design area only leaving you free to choose any background colour you wish. Changing the background colour can completely transform the design. Dark colours are very traditional but light pastel shades can look fabulous too.

In designs where there are two distinct areas of background, such a floral wreaths, two different background colours can be used to enhance the design.

And of course there is no need to have just a plain background; regular patterns such as stripes or checks look great as well and are straightforward to lay out on the plain canvas.

If you are really feeling adventurous you could even add texture to the design by working the background in a canvaswork stitch such as mosaic stitch, brick stitch or hungarian stitch.