Roman Stripe – a Little Needlepoint Freebie

This little quilt, done on interlock canvas, is one of my favorite pieces of needlepoint ever. It is a patchwork design called Roman Stripe and is done in a classic color palette for Amish quilts. The solid black rectangles set off the bright stripes and make them sparkle like jewels.

The classic Amish palette steers away from white and yellow, which are colors traditionally used in mourning. They also don’t use orange, although sometimes you can find a brilliant orange-red. I’ve loved Amish quilts for ages and have lots of books on them and own two traditional Amish quilts. While this rule for colors isn’t universal, picking colors in this range will make your needlepoint look Amish.

The design is stitched entirely in floss. Solid colors are best for this project, but very subtle hand-dyes, such as The Gentle Arts will also work. The design is very small on 18 mesh (1.25″ x 2.25″), so you might want to enlarge the design by substituting Scotch Stitches for the Tent Stitches and adding a wide border.

Begin by picking your large triangle color. It can be black or another dark color. I’m thinking about making a larger version of it to go in my powder room with the other needlepoint, so I might switch to a dark violet or very dark gray. You will also need five colors for the stripes.

The entire piece is charted above. Each of the five stripe colors is used in each block but the order of colors is random.

Happy Stitching!