Petei’s delightful needlepoint designs are such fun to stitch. They are small, fast to do (this took me a day and a half), but can have lots of detail and fun stitches.

This little robot is perfect for a geek or for a little boy. I love its retro, SciFi movie style.

A . . . → Read More: Petei People Robot Stitch Map]]>

Petei’s delightful needlepoint designs are such fun to stitch. They are small, fast to do (this took me a day and a half), but can have lots of detail and fun stitches.

This little robot is perfect for a geek or for a little boy. I love its retro, SciFi movie style.

A Stitch Map is available for this little guy and can be ordered using the buttons below. Stitch Maps are shorter, simpler stitch guides. They still give you materials lists and diagrams, but they cut right to the chase.

Best of all they are considerably less expensive than stitch guides.

The PDF version (to download) is only $2.

Get yours today!

All stitching has three aspects which need to be considered when evaluating them for backgrounds. . . . → Read More: Choosing the Background]]> I think one of the hardest parts of stitching hand painted canvas needlepoint is finding the perfect background. This article will help you evaluate different choices for background stitches and make suggestions for what will work.

Aspects of Stitches

All stitching has three aspects which need to be considered when evaluating them for backgrounds. They are texture, scale and direction. All of these aspects need to harmonize and not compete with the stitches you have chosen for the focal point of the hand painted canvas. If they are stronger, then your eye will notice the background instead of the focal point of the hand painted canvas needlepoint when finished.

Stitches and threads have texture to them. Your texture should not be stronger than the foreground. Stitches with very strong textures (like Turkeywork) should never be used for backgrounds. Open stitches are good choices because they look lower (and thus further back) than the Tent Stitch used in the focal point.

Your thread choice also has texture which affects the stitch. A stitch may work but the thread may not. It may be too thick and fluffy or it may have too much color variation, or it may draw too much attention to itself. Once again, your eye notices the background before the focal point. This is the kiss of death for any completed hand painted canvas needlepoint.

Scale has to do with the size of the stitch or the motif. I did a charming cheetah from Needlepoint, Inc. with a large Triangle Stitch as its background. There was lots of background, so the big scale worked well. For a busy design, a small scale stitch works well. Stitches which are too large smooth out details. Stitches which are too small for the focal point look fussy.

Many stitches have a strong direction, when the lines made by the stitches point in a particular direction. Elongated Cashmere is strongly horizontal or vertical. Double Woven has a strong and shifting diagonal direction. The direction of your background shouldn’t compete with the direction of your design. For example, if you are doing a design which has a vertical emphasis, don’t pick a strongly horizontal background.

The only exception I can think of for this is when your background is “really” a wall or a floor. On a canvas from ABS Designs, Santa is pictured against both a floor (horizontal) and a wall (vertical), creating a strong and busy background for this hand painted canvas needlepoint. It works because, in essence, this needlepoint is a picture in stitched form, and, like a photograph, the background needn’t be uniform.

Selecting a Background

When I’m looking for backgrounds, I go to my stitch dictionaries. I page through them looking at and marking stitches which seem suitable in texture, scale and direction. Often these are old friends which I use over and over, but sometimes they are new. I use Post-it flags to make the likely candidates.

If they are familiar, I think back to where I have used them before and remember what aspects of them I liked or didn’t like (sometimes I make notes in the books to remind me). If they are new, I might try them on a piece of doodle canvas to get an idea of how they work.

Once I find a good possibility, I start to stitch. In some cases, I try four different stitches in each corner of the hand painted canvas needlepoint. Usually I use the one which seems best. I stitch enough to get an idea of how it looks. If it isn’t working, then I cut it out and try another stitch (or another thread). Sometimes I have to cut out an awful lot of stitching.

A stitch might not work out for many reasons. It might have the wrong qualities for the piece. It might not work well with the thread you are using. It might use more thread than you have on hand. It might take longer than you have. It might be hard to compensate or it might make a small detail harder to stitch.

Don’t be dismayed if it takes several tries before you find the perfect background. Your choice of background stitches, threads and colors are part of what makes your hand painted canvas needlepoint unique. There are always lots of great possibilities for backgrounds — you are sure to find one that’s perfect for you!

Don’t pass on the canvas, you can change the colors easily.

Hair and skin colors are the easiest to change. For . . . → Read More: How Do I Change the Colors on my Canvas?]]> Often you find a hand painted canvas needlepoint you love, but some of the colors aren’t right. The hair color is wrong. Pink just won’t go in the room, or you hate green.

Don’t pass on the canvas, you can change the colors easily.

Hair and skin colors are the easiest to change. For hair, just pick the correct color of the same thread. I like Burmilana, Rainbow Tweed, and Petite Peluche for hair. All of these lines of thread have excellent choices for hair colors.

Skin can be more difficult because there are so many colors and your choice of skin color should harmonize with the hair and clothing. Happily some companies, like Access Commodities and Rainbow Gallery, make palettes of thread colors for skin, so it is easier to find lighter or darker shades.

You can see exactly how I did this for a baseball nutcracker I made for my DH and made it into his favorite player in this blog post about the hand painted canvas needlepoint. The tricky part comes when you want to change another part of the design, say change the dress from pink to yellow.

Begin by finding a thread which will match the area of the canvas in the original color. You don’t have to be picky about the thread type, and it doesn’t even have to be an exact match, just very close. I pick threads from my stash, but you could also buy a skein of inexpensive floss.
Now go pick the thread you want to use in a color as close in value (light/dark) as possible to the original color. If possible it should have a similar level of saturation (bright/dull) as well.
Put the threads together and squint at them, they should look almost the same. You can also look at them through a red or green value filter; these remove the color so that you can judge on values alone.

As a final test, pull out the other threads you were planning to use and see if they work well with the new color. Sometimes changing one color will mean some of the other colors will need to change.

If this is the case, repeat the process with the other colors until you are happy with the result
Now stitch your hand painted canvas needlepoint and make a unique work of art!

Relax, take a deep breath, . . . → Read More: Deciphering a Stitch Guide]]> When you buy needlepoint stitch guides, especially if you are ordering them on-line, you sometimes feel as if you aren’t getting what you expected. The guide comes, you look at that pile of threads, read through the guide, look at the canvas and have no idea where to begin.

Relax, take a deep breath, it isn’t as bad as you think it is. And these tips will help you with the stitch guide before you take a single stitch.

Lack of Picture: Often needlepoint stitch guides are written when there are no completed models, as a result there can’t be a picture. If you have bought a custom stitch guide (one written especially for you), there won’t be a picture because your needlepoint is the model.

Complexity: Needlepoint stitch guides when you read through them can seem really complex. I know when I look at a canvas, I often feel overwhelmed by the canvas and worry about the guide as a result. Read through the guide once and then do some things to sort out the spaghetti. A good guide will have done lots of these things for you, but if it hasn’t you can do it yourself.

• Highlight or write in the margin where each section of the guide begins. Then you can tell what’s what.
• If the diagrams for the stitches are all bunched together in one place, I would mark in the text where the appropriate diagram can be found.
• Highlight (in a second color) the name of every stitch used in every area.

These simple things should make the guide easier to understand.

Threads: Now go on and look at the threads. First check to be sure that every thread listed in the guide is in the thread pack. Sometimes things like floss aren’t included since they are easier to find, and sometimes things get forgotten. Better to know that up front so you can get what’s needed. If something which was supposed to be included isn’t, contact the shop right away.

I have a rule for threads in my needlepoint stitch guides, if the canvas will use less than a yard of the thread, then often I will suggest the stitcher use a thread from stash. As a stitcher, I don’t like buying threads which I will only use a little bit — I don’t need more stash. A thoughtful guide write won’t use the stitch guide as a way to sell threads you don’t need.

Too few stitches and threads for the canvas: This could be caused by a couple of things. The canvas is a flat medium and so you show shading by changing colors. Needlepoint is a dimensional medium and so I can show shading in lots of different ways. One way might be using padding, another might be using a specific stitch throughout an area. In both cases though, the canvas will have more colors than the number of threads you’ve got included.

Check to see if this applies anywhere in your canvas.

Another circumstance where you will have more colors on the canvas than in the threads is when an overdye is used. Let’s take an example where something is obviously multicolored — the sky at sunset. If I had an overdye which was just the perfect set of colors for this, I might convey the sky by using one stitch and that overdye. Once again many colors on the canvas; one thread.

Go through and see if this applies to places on your canvas.

This is similar to what I do when I work on a canvas writing a guide, I try to anticipate the stitcher’s questions, provide advice and work to make the whole thing easy to use.

But many guides do not do this to the same extent, and some go into even more depth.

If you haven’t bought the guide yet, check this stuff out before you buy. I f you have bought the guide, read it through, mark it up and make notes. It’s for you to help you stitch — make the needlepoint stitch guides the tool they should be.

Picture: A guide with a picture . . . → Read More: The Parts of a Stitch Guide]]>
Needlepoint Stitch Guides can be confusing at first. Understanding the parts of a guide and why they are there can help you find your way when stitching from one and help you know if the product you have bought will make it easier to stitch the canvas.

Picture: A guide with a picture of the stitched canvas is preferable to a guide without one. In some cases, such as custom guides, there is no model, so there is no picture.

Often a picture will help you understand where a thread is used or how an area is stitched. They should always be in color, although additional pictures in black and white can be helpful.

Materials List: A complete list of threads and other materials should be included with every guide, preferably at least twice. One should be able to be seen through the packaging, so you can pull the threads without pulling out the guide. The second should be within the guide itself.

It should list everything needed and should include the manufacturer information. You may be unfamiliar with a thread and knowing who makes it will make it easier for you to find.

The amounts should also be included. While the convention in needlepoint is to have amounts for each thread, if there is no amount listed. assume one unit (card, spool, or skein) is needed.

If materials from your stash are needed, that should be indicated here as well.

Designer and Canvas Information: Needlepoint stitch guides should clearly identify the designer, the name of the canvas, if possible, and the number. This information, sometimes along with the picture, should be sufficient for you to identify which guide goes with which canvas, should they get separated.

If possible the writer of the guide and that contact information should be included.

If the guide was written by or for a shop, that should be included as well.

This information is important in case guide and canvas get separated, or if you have questions you would like to ask the writer or shopowner. If no writer is listed, assume the designer wrote the guide.

Section Breaks: It’s a pet peeve but I hate needlepoint stitch guides for sets of canvases where I can’t tell where one thing ends and another begins. If I don’t stitch the canvases in the same order, how do I know where to find the correct part of the guide?

A guide covering a set of canvases should have two extra elements in it. First, there should be a clear indication of where the guide for one canvas ends and the next begins. Second, if there are elements which are the same in every canvas, like borders or backgrounds those instructions should be grouped together at the front of the instructions and not repeated over and over.

Copying: Sometimes areas of a canvas need to be photocopied in order to act as a reference for stitching. It’s very frustrating to discover this after you have been stitching. It should be noted up front.

But usually you can catch this during you first read through of needlepoint stitch guides. If you do, highlight it and make your copy as quickly as possible.

Just remember the canvas design is copyright to the designer and your photocopy is only a work copy and should be destroyed once the design is stitched.

Diagrams: Most stitches in needlepoint stitch guides require a diagram. Some don’t, either because they are too common, like Basketweave, or too hard to draw, like French Knots. The best place for a diagram is in the text, where it is used. When this stitch is used again, it should refer back to that original diagram.

A second, and much worse, choice, is to refer to stitches in a generally accepted reference book, like The Needlepoint Book. If this is done a name and page number should always be supplied.

A bad solution is to group all stitches together in one place in the guide. This makes the guide harder to read and harder to use. It’s a pain to be flipping back and forth constantly.

Instructions: Depending on the guide, the instructions given can be all over the place. A one page guide might only list the area, the stitch and he thread. More complex needlepoint stitch guides might give you in-depth instruction on less common techniques. You might even feel as if the writer of the guide is there being your teacher.

Which level of guide is right depends on the canvas and on your level of stitching knowledge. A simple canvas might only need a one page guide. More complex techniques might require lots of explanation.

This is where it really makes send to see the picture or look at the guide. If there is a technique which is unfamiliar to you, is it explained? Do you think you could stitch from the explanation, even if it seems confusing on first read through? This is where custom guides can really shine. The writer of these needlepoint stitch guides is writing for you, and should take into account your requests. Do you hate rayon? It shouldn’t be in the guide. Do you want to learn to use silk threads? The guide should use silk instead of cotton.

Finally, I see a guide as always being a way to increase needlepoint knowledge. So if a technique or a stitch will work well for other kinds of canvases, I’m going to let you know. No matter how successful I am as a designer of guides, I can’t write them for everything, so I want you to use what I have shown you when you encounter this situation again.

Resources: If your guide is not exclusive to a shop, having a list of manufacturers for the materials used is a nice touch, You can use to to find a shop in your area which carries the item or your shop can use it to get the item for you.

A Personal Note: When I started writing guides, I thought long and hard about what I wanted as a stitcher and what frustrated me. That influenced the structure of my guides. But that is always changing. If there is something you would like to see in guides, or a problem you are having with a guide, just ask me.