If you have lots of art or photos or needlepoint and want to put them up in your house consider grouping them into a gallery wall. Theses “exhibits” showcase a bunch of framed pieces by grouping them together on a wall or in a room. If you have furniture nearby you can also have the collection spill over onto the furniture.
The folks in my house are semi-addicted to pictures of all kinds and usually in multiples. My desk has taped up on it postcards and pictures that are an inspiration to me. On the other side of the desk I have a magnet board, below, with my needleminders. It was going to be a gallery wall of needlepoint, but the magnet collection got too big.
Across the room I have more groups of needlepoint, including the one pictured at the top of the post. To the left you can see that I’m starting another small gallery of quilt-related needlepoint anchored by a vintage David Lance Goines poster. Right now it only has one piece but that will change as soon as I have time to get the framing done.
The idea behind a gallery wall is to group similar items together. How you define similar is really up to you. The items can be:
- by the same artist
- have a similar subject
- use the same technique
- use similar colors
- be framed similarly
You can pick some or all of these things for your wall. However the more aspects that are similar or the same, the more uniform and traditional your wall will look. Clearly I’m going for a more casual and bohemian style (If you think this is eccletic you should see our family picture wall!).
If you do a search for information about creating gallery walls you’ll find lots of advice and it might put you off the entire process.
Don’t let it, you don’t need to be so formal about it. Your collection doesn’t have to be large, nor does it have to fit more than one of the categories. You can use your eyes and your good sense to create a lovely wall to display your needlework.
Here’s how I do it.
- Pick your area for your gallery. Know approximately how big it is.
- Gather the needlepoint you’d like for the wall.
- If your chosen needlepoint isn’t framed or ready to display frame it.
- Hang the needlepoint, one piece at a time.
I don’t lay the pieces out on the floor first, or measure. Because we stitch our eyes can probably recognize nicely arranged pieces. My method is to put up one piece first. Because I know this will have several pieces I do not center it on the wall. To it I addd other pieces as I find them.
Part of what makes a gallery wall fun is variety. For this wall it’s a variety of frame colors and shapes. However the frames are all simple modern frames which help unify them.
The larger pieces form the backbone of your gallery wall. You populate it by adding smaller pieces to fill in the spaces. To this wall I could add a long skinny piece above the sailboat, as well as larger or smaller pieces above and below the “Queen of Everything” piece. The quilt side will have a second block framed the same way under the poster and series of smaller blocks framed on either side. If I wanted to have the display be higher I could add two more large blocks above the poster.
Because these walls often have lots of pieces on them, try to create galleries on walls out of the sun. The pictured wall is next to a window but gets no direct sunlight. Another trick to placing your wall is to see the highest point the sun gets on the wall and putting the pictures above it. Your work will stay looking good for many years that way.
By creating a gallery wall you are not only finding a place to display several pieces, you are creating something that will make you smile when you see it.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
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