One of the more frustrating aspects of doing needlepoint is coming face-to-face with a large undefined background which needs to be filled. The traditional way to solve this problem is to fill it with tent stitch. And what’s the result? A lovely piece which you may end up abandoning because the background bores you. Now mind you I love doing basketweave backgrounds, they can be a delightful counterpoint to your design. But I also can’t help tinkering. Her are some ideas you can use for your canvases Mixing Colors In the world of overdyed and hand-dyed threads, bringing many colors to our needlepoint, a tent stitch background in a single color looks, well, sort of flat. An easy way to add depth to the background while not really changing the color is to combine more than one color of thread (or even two dye lots which don’t match) in the