January Random Thoughts on Needlepoint
Here’s another batch of great needlepoint tips:
~ Use tighter tension on waste canvas, pulling out the canvas will loosen the stitches.
~ Poor quality canvas is stiffer than good canvas. It needs more sizing to make it stiff.
~ Use a shadowbox to display needlepoint. Make it special by adding related, non-stitched items to the box.
~ When ending a thread, don’t yank too hard, it will pucker your last stitch.
~ Color names can be decieving. Moonglow might be blue to me and yellow to you. Be careful of this when buying threads.
~ Thread colors can vary. Always check your threads for a piece together in daylight. Don’t rely on what is printed in your instructions.
~ Don’t use stranded threads like floss for pulled canvas. It is difficult to make the stitches look smooth.
~ If you are making your own tramme, use penelope canvas and lay the tramme threads in the small holes between the double threads horizontally.
~ Why not take something from your stash and make a “Autumn Project” You might get it finished by December!
~ To take needlepoint on vacation, put project, thread, extra needles and scissors in a small Sportsac or cosmetic bag. Put it into your checked luggage.
~ Ribbon floss is made by a company which makes shoelaces using the same looms.
Show off your favorite small ornaments year-round with a tree constructed of wooden ~ dowels.
~ To make canvas softer, crumple it up in your hands and smooth it out several times. But then work with the canvas stretched.
~ Rainbow Gallery has four threads in matching colors: Splendor (floss), Grandeur, Elegance and Subtlety. Use this to get variation in texture without variation in color.
~ Make a needlepoint to commemorate any special event. My daughter is getting the piece I made while I waited for her to pass her driver’s test.
~ Designs with small spaces or really rough edges are not good for patterned or textured backgrounds. Fill these areas with tent stitch first.
~ Substituting a patterned or textured background in a kit will make the result more individual.
~ Make a needlepoint tweed using two closely related colors by stitching every other row in a different color.
~ Textured stitches with even counts work best with foregrounds with even counts and odd with odd.
~ You can mark all your stretcher bars with the length and your initials, now you won’t lose them and you know the sizes you have.
~ Pick a stitch which emphasizes either what the area is in real life (Scotch on a plaid shirt) or the shape of the area.
~ Background choice should reinforce the central design. Put complex background on designs which have large clear lines in them.
~ A tip for using fabric markers: The brush end works better than the tip end when drawing on canvas.
~ Tip for using fabric markers: Store them flat so both points stay moist.
~ Live with your needlepoint awhile before stitching. Hang it up with masking tape so you get ideas for threads and stitches.
~ You spend lots of effort on stitching, make sure the design you pick has correct proporition and a single focal point.
~ Don’t make only one area of your canvas shaded or blended, do two or three.
~ Stitch doesn’t fit? CHANGE IT! Make it bigger or smaller, frame it, stagger it, change the sequence — it’s your work.
~ In needlepoint, practice does make perfect, the more you stitch the better the results.
~ If you are using fabric for your mat or frame, pick the fabric first, then find threads to match.
~ Change the size of a French knot by changing the size of the needle, not by increasing the number of wraps.
~ When using rayon flosses always double your thread through the needle, this makes it easier to handle.
If you liked these tips and want more, why not get a copy of my book, Needlepoint Trade Secrets? It’s packed full of tips about needlepoint from start to finish. You can buy it at your local needlework store, from Amazon.com (here) or from Nordic Needle.
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