Building a new market display

A few weeks ago I attended the market tegendraads uit de bocht in Wormerveer. It was a really lovely relaxed day, my first open air market and located right along the waterfront (and my aunt and uncle from Canada even showed up which was pretty special!).

Before the market I updated my display stands, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I loved the old ones with the hand-printed wallpaper backgrounds, but they had been breaking the last few markets and were now held together with tape that sometimes slipped off when someone touched the hoops. (These were sawhorses that I had glued strips of wood to and then stapled on big sheets of my linoprint wallpaper as a background).

When I found out these were getting mouldy from a damp corner of the basement, I knew it was time to make something new. I started in the same way I had for my old stands - by browsing through the local home improvement store looking for ideas and inspiration. Then I spent a while sketching ideas, trying to build prototypes out of cardboard and generally feeling frustrated because I felt like my brain couldn't latch onto a clear idea.

Finally, I decided that from past experience I knew the best way to me to build something was to just get started. I liked the look of a wooden pegboard but didn't want to use MDF pegboards. Instead, I figured out a plan for simple A-frames, found out the dimensions for a large sheet of plywood, laid out the embroidery hoops on the floor, and made a sketch of the dimensions I needed.

I took my sketch to the local joinery, looked at their poplar plywood and asked them to cut it to size as well as to cut a wooden dowel into 50 short equal pieces. Once I had the wood I sanded and oiled each piece and then drilled holes for the dowels.

I drilled two holes at the top and then used little strips of leather to tie them together at the top. This provides enough tension that the frames don't slip open, and I can untie them and take out the dowels for flat storage and transport.

I again realised that the best creative work for me comes from starting something and then seeing where it leads. I've had a vague idea in my head for years about a display stand like this, but only by laying out the actual hoops, looking at and feeling the wood, and trying out different options for attaching the boards together did it start to finally come together. I'm really happy with how sturdy they are and how they make a much cleaner background for the different groups of patterns.