Valentine Heart Mini Stitch Guide

This shaded heart is one of Mindy’s mini canvas (1C) The bright colors against the black background give it a moden feel. Another great aspect of this design is that it gives you plenty of places for beads. There are two borders as well, pacing lots of pattern into the small space.

Materials

• High Cotton in: seafoam 432 (aqua), natural 002 (white), and black 005 (black)
• Needlepoint, Inc. silk in 682 (pink), 114 (blue), 436 9
  teal) and 894 (blue-violet)
• Sundance Color Vibe bead assortments in: BDS-CV002 Old Lace (white), BDS-CV012 Fandango (violet), and BDS-CV001 Hematute (black/grey)
• Neon Rays N36 (dark teal)
• Kreinik #12 002V (gold)

One skein or package of each thread is needed. I used a strand of natural or black High Cotton to sew on the beads. If you like, you may use beading thread instead.

High Cotton which was used for three colors in this piece is being discontinued. If you can find it use it (it’s a great thread). If you cannot substitute cotton floss. Use three strands of High Cotton or four of floss.

Silk floss, or stranded silk, is preferred for the shaded area in the heart. If you do not have silk floss, cotton floss can be substituted. You can also use Baroque Silk, although this is harder to split. For the solid colors, use 1 of the three strands in the thread. For the shaded colors use two of the three plies in each strand. Use four strands of silk or cotton floss.

Color Vibe is an assortment of beads in a specific color scheme, made by Sundance. You can substitute other seed beads for these. You will need 4 black, 12 violet, and 12 white seize 11 seed beads for his design.

Stitching & Embellishing

1. Stitch the black and white outer border in Continental using High Cotton.
2. Stitch the dark teal border of the white squares in Continental using Neon Rays.
3. Stitch the white squares in Smyrna Cross, below, using white High Cotton.



4. Stitch the aqua squares in Open Center Scotch, below, using High Cotton.







5. Add white beads the the center of the aqua squares and violet beads to the center of the white squares.
6. Stitch the gold heart in Four-way Continental, below, using gold Kreinik.







7. Add black beads to the heart outline where indicated on the canvas.
8. Stitch the black outline of the heart in Needlepoint Cross Stitch, below, using black High Cotton.







9. The inside of the heart is stitched in Tent and uses needleblending for the intermediate shades (see the next section for detailed instructions on this).
10. Stitch the background in Diagonal Mosaic, below, using black High Cotton.

Shading with Needleblending

Needleblending allows you to create colors between two solid colors of threads by using a thread made up of both colors. In the heart there are blended shades between each of the solid colors of silk. From top to bottom the colors go like this: pink – blend – blue-violet – blend – blue – blend – teal.

You can look at your canvas and you can see where the color changes between each of the solid colors. Because this area is small, there are only a few stitches of each color.

The easiest way to stitch a shaded area is to stitch the solid colors first. Just be sure to leave at least one thread open between the colors. In these open areas you will stitch with the blended thread with two strands of each color.

Come back next month for the next Mindy mini stitch guide!
Don’t forget the free Scrap Bag Needlepoint project on February 28.