Needlepoint Rugs – Stitches

Updated November 29, 2019.
When you are making a needlepoint rug (from Art Needlepoit), such as this one. You need to think before you stitch. Will it be hanging on the wall or be underfoot? This has implications not only for the thread (read about this here), but also for the stitches you use.

If your rug will hang on the wall you have no worries about stitches. But if it will live on the floor, your stitches need to hold up to heavy use. This means NO stitches going over more than three threads. Longer stitches will snag.

Any stitch in the Mosaic family, such as Offset Mosaic, above, will work. So will shorter versions of Scotch and Cashmere. Cross stithes aren’t great choices unless they are quite small because they are layered and can snag more easily. Stick to cross stitches over 2 threads at most.

But what do you do when the stitch is longer than three threads, like this Diagonal Gobelin?

You split up the longer stitches into shorter ones. This version of Cocktail Stitch, divides every other stitch, but since there are two types of divisions in this over four stitches, you could alternate between the two.

You can do this division with most stitches. When you do, you will find that sometimes internal stitch patterns occur, so test out a small block on a scrap of canvas before committing.