Backing the Open Needlepoint Canvas

Although leaving parts of your canvas exposed in some way has been around for a long time, it’s become much more popular in recent years. While it looks lovely, it can create serious problems in finishing. Today we’ll look at three specific problems and what to do about them.

Open Canvas and Self-finishing Items

You have a lovely open background you want to use on the great self-finishing purse. It’s going to stick fine for finishing it, but after awhile the needlepoint falls out. I learned this because it actually happened to me.

This happens because the open holes in the canvas will allow dust to get in and attach to the exposed adhesive. The more open canvas the faster this happens and if the adhesive is exposed it loses stickiness and your needlepoint falls off as mine did.

The obvious solution is to put fabric on the adhesive as a lining, but then how do you get the needlepoint to stick?

To avoid this you need to line your needlepoint before adding it to the item. To do this:

• Pick a solid color in a non-translucent fabric.
• Sew it to the needlepoint, fabric front to needlepoint back (face out) just at the edge of the needlepoint.
• Treat it as one thing and finish as instructed for your item.

You can also do this to finsh open canvas items that will be finished over button forms and similar items.

Open Canvas and Soft Items

If you are finishing a soft item such as a pillow, ornament, or stocking you will also need to use fabric for finishing.

Here are some tips to make it work:

• The backing fabric needs to be facing the back of the needlepoint so it will show through.
• Use soid fabrics or quilting batiks, prints will be obscured by the needlepoint.
• Depending on how the item will be finished, do not sew the backing to the needlepoint.
• The backing is not the same as the lining, the lining is a separate piece.

The Noel stocking in the picture above uses gold lame for the backing and a plaid taffeta for the lining.

Open Canvas and Framing

While you can use fabric behind needlepoint that will be framed, most fabric will ravel if it is thin or be too thick if it won’t ravel. A better choice for framed needlepoint is to use paper or card stock. Some possible sources of sold or mottled solid papers are:

• single sheet scrapbook papers (scrapbook pads usually are all prints)
• card stock packages
• solid wrapping paper for larger items

Here’s how to finish the item.

• Use the paper pattern from the frame as a pattern to mark the paper on the wrong side and cut it out.
• Use that paper liner to trim the needlepoint canvas to fit.
• If you have no paper pattern measure carefully to cut the paper backing and needlepoint.
• Remove the glass from the frame if needed.
• Assemble the finished piece: frame, needlepoint, backing paper (colored side out), frame backing.
• Finish frame as needed.

I’ve done this with many items, including the angel you see at the top of the column. Here are some tips to make this work successfully.

• Bring your needlepoint with you to test papers if you are buying single sheets.
• Place the needlepoint directly on top of the paper to test and look for paper with enough contrast so the stitching stands out, but not so much that it is the thing you notice first.
• If you find a pad or package of colors that look as if they will be generally useful, buy it. Then you can pick and test paper at home.
• If you frame is colored, take that color into account when buying a backing.
• Paper comes in different sizes. Try to buy ones that are bigger than your needlepoint. If you can’t you can probably piece, but make sure the pieces overlap and that the top piece is folded so no raw edge of the paper shows.