Great Background Idea!

NCPat over on her blog, Needleartnut, has been working on a Sharon B shaving brush piece. I love her plan for the background.

She has taken the word “Shave” and repeated it throughout the background in a white on white scheme.

What makes it cool is that she has staggered the word so that it becomes more of a repeating design element and less something you read.

This post shows how she has charted it out.

You can do this easily yourself.

1. Pick out your threads. You can use all the same thread and stitch the word in cross stitch, so it’s slightly raised, or you can pick contrasting textures like pearl cotton and wool.
2. Find a simple alphabet to use to chart the word.
3. Using graph paper and your slphabet, chart the word and make adjustments so it will look blocky. This will help make it more of a graphic element.
4. Take the first letter of the word and place it in staggered lines (see post) so that you know where to place the work throughout the background.
5. You don’t need to chart the whole word more than once. As long as you know the distance between the word on a single line and the starting point for a word on each line, you can fill in the rest as you stitch.

This type of background doesn’t need to be limited to white on white. What about using pink or blue and the baby’s name or birthdate for the background of a piece for a baby’s room? Or how about using one of the sponge painted canvases and just stitching the words?

You could also gather a bunch of words relating to the subject of the needlepoint and chart them throughout the background. Although with this idea there is lots more charting. I’ve done this for backgrounds and the effect is pretty neat.

Thanks to Pat for giving us such a fantastic, easy and unique idea for making a background!