Framing Paintings on Suede

A couple of posts ago, I was singing the praises of using suede paper as as support for pastel painting.  This post will tell you how difficult it is to frame paintings on suede supports!  lol

I'm participating in an arts festival the weekend of the 23rd of this month and am trying to get paintings selected and framed and just stuff ready for the event. 

The painting of the dog (Chevy) that I'd painted on the suede paper gave me a very hard time.as no matter what I did, the pastel would fall off.  I sprayed it several times with fixative and even that didn't seem to help. 

I ended up tapping the back of the painting to get rid of as much loose pastel as I dared then I attached the hanger wire holders to the frame and attached one end of the hanger wire.  I left the frame in an upright position, cleaned and inserted the glass into the frame, added the top mat, then the inner mat turned to face the painting (to capture any pastel dust that might still fall).  Finally I added the painting and the backing board. 

After trying several times to frame this painting and cleaning the glass numerous times after each failure, I finally got the dog framed!  I guess the secret is to leave the frame upright during the whole framing process!

Framing Questions

We've had a bunch of stuff to do this morning so am just now getting time to ask you all some questions about framing.  Here's the deal -

A friend's husband may get laid off from his job and is seriously considering opening a frame shop.  He's always made the frames and cut the mats for all their picture framing needs and I'm sure he'd do very well.  He's asked what is expected of a framer, particularly from an artist's point of view.  What do you all want most when you go to have a piece of art framed?  What would you like to say to all the frame shops out there?

OK, that's it, that's all I wanted to ask.  I'd like to give him a good overview of framing from our point of view so any relevant comments most welcome!