How to Plan the Stitches on Your Needlepoint Canvas Maybe by now you’ve stitched a few needlepoint canvases using Basketweave or Continental stitch and you’re ready to step it up a notch and try some decorative stitches for your next needlepoint project. How do you go about choosing what stitches to use and where to use them? Here’s what we do... 1. Get Your Creep On. The very first thing we do when planning out a canvas is we stare at it for a really long time. Sounds creepy, we know, but it works. Have your canvas sit beside you while you eat breakfast and just look it over, peer at the individual elements in it and think about how you want the overall canvas to look. Pick it up again while you wait for the news to come on at night (yes, we know we’ve aged ourselves right there), or, before you go to sleep so your subconscious can ruminate on it overnight, or while you’re having that post-long-day-at-work -my-boss-is-so-annoying glass of wine. Whenever it may be, take two or three occasions to just look at the canvas and think about the following: About how many different stitches will this canvas ‘take’ before it starts to look overdone? What effect am I going for – Art house? Traditional? Realistic? Abstract? Contemporary? Minimalist? What am I going to do with the canvas once I’ve stitched it? Frame it? Make a pillow? Stitch it to something else? Is the canvas itself beautiful and should I leave some of it showing? Once you’ve spent a bit of time perusing the canvas and getting a feel for it, without making too many decisions, it’s time to analyze some of your answers and do some more detailed planning. It’s time to… 2. Sketch It Out The way we do this is to take a photograph of the actual canvas and print it out so you can write notes on the paper. You could also sketch an outline of the elements in the canvas onto a piece of paper. Here’s a picture of a small ikat needlepoint design we planned to stitch… The first thing we did was print out a photograph of the design onto a piece of paper so we could plan out our stitches by writing notes on the paper. This included the colors we were using and arrows going to places on the canvas with suggested stitch ideas. It’s messy, but here’s what it looked like... First, we decided on an overall Look & Feel. This was a small canvas so it wasn’t going to easily make up into a pillow. We decided we were going to frame it, so we wanted it to look like original art—our Look and Feel was going to be contemporary and minimalist. We also wrote down how many colors we had to “play” with. As a rule of thumb you don’t want to use any more stitches than half the number of colors you have. Say, what? If your canvas has four colors on it, two decorative stitches are probably enough to use without overwhelming the eye. The smaller the canvas, the fewer unique stitches you should use – a large canvas can take more without looking overdone and confusing to the eye. We had five colors to play with so decided we would look for ways to incorporate two decorative stitches. And, since we knew we wanted a contemporary look, the decorative stitches we chose were simple and suitable for small areas—an Upright Cross Stitch and a Satin Stitch. There was some lovely shading on this canvas, so we thought it might be fun to experiment with leaving some small canvas areas open (unstitched) – this way the completed design would look more textured and contemporary. Stitching the entire canvas is the traditional thing to do in needlepoint and it always looks good. Leaving some areas open, or partially stitched, is an increasingly popular technique, especially if your canvas is hand- painted with nice shaded areas. Also, we knew we could fill in the open areas at the end if we didn’t like them. So, now that we had our plan sketched out the next step was to get started. Since we weren’t sure if our plan would work (we never are) we decided to complete one corner of the canvas using all the stitches and colors so we could see if we wanted to continue or if the plan needed adjusting. Here’s what the canvas looked like with one area stitched... At this point we could have made adjustments, or ripped out and started again, without it being too painful. Those were the steps we took to plan the Ikat Mini canvas (which you can find on our website, or you can email and ask us about it at [email protected]), and the same strategy can be applied to planning any needlepoint canvas. Here are a few other useful tips... A good needlepoint book, with examples of the various decorative stitches, is invaluable. How to Needlepoint by The National Needlearts Association is the best starter booklet we know of, and we would love to give you one for free when you place your first order with us within 30 days of downloading this pdf. In order to receive this free book just email us at [email protected] once you’ve placed your order—you can write Free Book Please in the subject line and we’ll match up your email address with your order! A book with more advanced stitches and needlework ideas is Jo Ippolito’s The Needlepoint Book which is a staple in any needlepoint library. It can be found on our site under Accessories-Books. We’re going to finish up with a list of… General Tips and Techniques for Planning Your Needlepoint Canvas: 1. Don’t Forget Surface Embroidery This is a technique that is often overlooked in needlepoint. Surface embroidery can be used for stitching curved lines and areas of fine detail on your canvas (lettering, faces etc.). Surface embroidery might include using a back stitch in a finer thread, or applying French knots to your design at the end, or even couching threads on the top. It’s a wonderful way to apply detail, texture and add interest to your design, and infor- mation about surface embroidery and needlepoint couching can be found on www.needlepoint-for-fun.com by entering these terms into the Search box at the top of the Home Page. 2. Stitch the furthest away objects first. If your design has elements that sit one in front of the other – this might be trees, people in a crowd, a collection of objects - stitch the furthest away objects first. The last stitches placed will then sit on top, and will bring that object further forward in the picture where it belongs. For example, stitch the willow tree in this JP Needlepoint design last. 3. Big stitches need big spaces. When choosing needlepoint stitches think about how big the area is you have to stitch. If you want to use a stitch that needs some space to establish the pattern (e.g. Leaf or Nobuku), then you will need a larger stitching area to apply it to. Small spaces on your canvas might be best stitched in a Tent, Scotch or Cross Stitch. This Swirl Stitch needs some room and isn’t effective in a small space. 4. Diagonal Versus Straight Stitches. It can get tricky when diagonal stitches butt up against straight stitches. This is not to say they shouldn't, just be mindful of the design elements you are portraying with your stitching, and how your planned stitches will look when they line up together. Lining diagonal up against straight will not be a smooth transition and will show separation of elements, which is great if it's what you're going for. When you bring a diagonal stitch up against a straight stitch, stitch the straight stitch last (the straight stitches on the edge will share holes with the diagonal stitches). 5. Make things that move look like they are moving. If there are elements in your design that move in real life – water, trees, hair – try to select stitches that have ‘movement’ in them. For example, Encroaching Oblique and Oblique Slav, Water Stitch—these all give an impression of something being moved along in a wave-like motion. Stitches that are uni-directional give an impression of flow or movement, whereas cross stitches tend to block movement. The variety of knots you can make (French knot, Colonial knot, bullion knot), can give movement and texture to hair or fur. 6. Use Stitches With Good Coverage For Pillows & Furniture You don’t want highly decorative or loose stitches on items that are going to get a lot of use. Stitches that cross multiple thread intersections are looser and not as stable as stitches that don’t—so stick with them if your stitched canvas is going to be made into a pillow or a chair cover etc. 7. Don’t Mess With The Face There is very rarely a reason to stitch faces in anything other than a Tent stitch. We think the same thing ap- plies to skin in general. It always looks better stitched simply with attention paid to subtle color changes rather than decorative stitches. We certainly hope you’ve found this information useful.