Needlepoint Tips

Updated October 31, 2023.
Here are some great needlepoint tips and facts I’ve come across recently.

If you need to clean out canvas holes after ripping out thread, instead of buying a specialized tool, try wrapping some masking tape around your fingers and pressing it gently to the ripped out area. Another great tool for this is a “spoolie” otherwise known as a mascara brush. Just make sure it’s clean.

If your are assembling a box, tissue cover or other item from plastic canavs, always work from the closed end to the open end — it’s easer to hide threads ends that way and you get a better fit.

Looking for a hard-waering stitch for a rug or chair seat? Try the combination of Continental and Penelope canvas.

Your Basketweave will look nicest on the back if you keep the needle parallel to the canvas threads: horizontal on the down rows and vertical on the up rows.

If you use tramme under your Tent Stitching, you can use Half-Cross Stitch; the padding will give the stitch stability and keep it from slipping under the canvas threads. Even so, I wouldn’t recommend it as it is a pain to rip out.

If you are making tramme as an underlayer for your stitching (i.e. it will be completely covered with additional stitching. It doesn’t have to go all the way across an area, just be sure to have the stitches overlap slightly, so there are not gaps. Also stagger the beginnings and endings of the stitches so you don’t get ridges.

An older name for needlepoint done on Congress Cloth was Ivory Canvas Work. In it the background was often left unstitched.

You might think Four-way Bargello was only invented in the 1970’s but I found two four-way patterns in a reprint of a needlework magazine form 1907.