Blog ·
Needlepoint, if you have only ever knitted
Half the shop is given to needlepoint, and most knitters walk past it. Here is what it actually involves, and why the finishing is the part to ask about first.
The shop has two halves. Most people who come in for yarn never cross to the other one, and when they do, the first question is almost always the same: is this like cross-stitch?
Not really. Cross-stitch is worked on even-weave fabric from a chart. Needlepoint is worked on stiff canvas, usually one that has been painted by hand, and the design is already there in front of you. You are not counting squares off a diagram — you are filling in a picture that somebody painted.
What you actually buy
Three things, and they are bought together for a reason.
The canvas. Hand-painted, in a mesh count — 13 and 18 are the usual. The lower the number, the bigger the holes and the faster it goes. An 18-count canvas holds far more detail but asks for finer thread and better light.
The threads. Silk, wool, cotton, and a great many things that are none of those. This is where a canvas stops being a purchase and becomes a project: the same design in wool and in silk are two different objects.
The stretcher bars. Canvas distorts as you stitch it. Bars keep it square, and squareness matters enormously at the end.
We pull threads for a canvas at the counter, and it takes a while — which is the point. Bring the canvas, or buy it here, and we will work through the palette with you rather than sell you a bag of thread and wish you luck.
The part nobody mentions until it is too late
A finished canvas is not a finished thing.
You stitch for weeks, tie off the last thread, and you are holding a stiff rectangle. It is not yet a pillow, a stocking, an ornament or anything else. It has to be blocked back into square and made up — and that is a separate craft, done by a finisher, and it costs money.
People find this out at the end, and it is an unpleasant surprise. So: ask before you start. Ask what the canvas is going to become, what finishing that costs, and whether the design suits it. A canvas that will be a pillow can take a bolder stitch than one destined to be a small ornament.
We arrange finishing, and we will give you an idea of cost before you commit to a canvas rather than after.
Where to start
Small. An ornament, or a coaster-sized piece — something that will be finished this season rather than next year. Christmas ornaments are the traditional first canvas for a good reason: they are small, they get used every year, and they forgive an uneven tension.
The Stitching Studio runs Thursday afternoons, twelve to two. Bring whatever you are working on and sit with people doing the same. There is no lesson and no set project — it is the needlepoint equivalent of Knit Club.
If you would rather have someone beside you for the first hour, private lessons are $45 an hour and can be arranged around your schedule. For a first canvas that is usually enough: cast on, learn to tie off properly, and understand what the painted lines are actually telling you.