Turning Photographs to Needlepoint

Recently I’ve been working on a needlepoint which is based on a photo I took late last year. I have always shied away from doing this, because all the many colors of photos don’t (I think) translate particularly well to stitching.

Using the photo conversion features of many charting programs tends to make designs which look too fuzzy to me and which require way too many colorchanges.

So I’ve avoided this. But I’m so excited by my results so far that I want to share them with you. This method works best when there are clear objects in the picture and where your own knowledge and stitches will create much of the detail. It is not well-suited where you want to reproduce the picture exactly, nor will it work well for faces and such. But it’s perfect for buildings, landscapes and still lifes.

Begin with choosing your picture. Make sure it is one with lots of contrast. For example if you want a needlepoint of a building at night, use a picture of the same building during the day for your conversion.

Make an enlarged color copy of the photo to the size you want the finished building to be(not the overall size). In my case I wanted the building to fill up most of a 5″ x 7″ area, so that’s what I looked for.

Use tracing paper and trace over the main parts of your picture you want to transfer to needlepoint. Usually this is the building outline and perhaps the horizon line. Remember to add things like roof lines, windows and doors if you are doing a building. Don’t worry about color changes at this point and if you are confused look at your original photo.

Use pencil to trace and go over it with black pen once you are happy with the result.

Now photocopy this picture to get a more sturdy piece of paper. Go over all the lines again with a black pen to make them sharp and clear.

Use this to trace the picture onto your canvas.

In my case I have a winery and the hills in the background (both from the photo. In the foreground will be some grass and the vineyard full of flowering mustard (which is in bloom right now).

The drawn building and hills has given me structure where I need something to follow and the open foreground will let me be creative.

No the result won’t look like the picture, but it will be better than I could have done on my own.

Complete instructions for making this design and a line-drawn canvas are available from Napa Needlepoint.