One of my regular blog stops is my friend Denise Felton’s Needlework News blog at Craft Gossip.
I always find such cool things on her site, and not just needlepoint.
One of the things Denise does best is her round-ups of free charts. She does these often and in the last couple of weeks she’s had a ton of great things, often originally designed for cross stitch, that would make marvelous needlepoint.
She has had a set of Autumn designs (check out the great needlepoint Candy Corn). There is a post about the cross stitch designer Kali, who has a unique style well adapted to needlepoint. Think about adding textured stitches to her animals or Sunbonnet Sue.
Three sets of Christmas designs have been posted recently. These have free charts and projects for a variety of needlework, including a humorous plastic canvas project in the first one and several delightful Christmas trees in the second, and a great little picture frame in the third. The second post has some charts that are backstitch only, so they won’t work well as needlepoint. Also in this post is a charming Scandinavian Advent Calendar. If you want to do this in needlepoint, remember to stitch it on colored, metallic or vintage canvas – there is lots of open space.
Most of all, I look forward to her general round-ups of charts; right now she has lots of them. Sometimes they are all counted work (cross stitch and needlepoint), sometimes they include other forms of needlework as well, but I always find something fun. In her recent posts, I’ve found:
- a cupcake designed for needlepoint, a charming sampler, and a vintage alphabet from last Monday’s list
- many vintage style charts and a witty “stranded cotton” piece (top right) from Wednesday
- a Kanji sampler. two Matrioshkas, and several French charts, also from Wenesday
- a geranium for needlepoint, Charlie Chaplin, and a glorious Egyptian scarab, from Wednesday’s final set
- a lovely origami inspired bird, a sampler with an owl, and two cats from yesterday
When you are looking at cross stitch charts and thinking about adapting them to needlepoint, watch out for a couple of things:
- look for a minimal amount of non-outline backstitch. Outline backstitch can be left out of needlepoint as it isn’t needed, facial features can be done over stitching, but non-outline backstitch can be hard to do
- charts with partial stitches. While partial (half and quarter) stitches are used to make curves in cross stitch, they can’t be done in needlepoint. These kind of graphs can be tricky to adapt.
My blog plost about adapting cross stitch charts to needlepoint has more information
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