How to get a custom needlepoint canvas

The three ways

• Stitch from a chart. A chart is the design on paper as a grid of squares, one square for each stitch. Nothing is put on the canvas: you count squares on the chart and make the same number of stitches on blank canvas, as how to read a chart explains. The photo tool charts a photo, and the graph paper tool prints squared paper for drawing names, dates, initials and simple shapes.
• Paint or trace the design onto blank canvas, from the same chart or from a drawing. The canvas then shows which color goes where, and the stitching needs no counting.
• Order the canvas. A painter paints it by hand from your photos or sketch, or a printing service prints your picture on it.

If a ready-made design would do, there are free charts for belts, stockings and pillows, and of pets and houses.

Settle the size first

Mesh is the number of holes, and so of stitches, in an inch of canvas: see canvas and mesh sizes. A design's size is its stitches divided by the mesh, so 72 stitches are 4 inches (10 cm) on 18 mesh and about 5 1/2 inches (14 cm) on 13 mesh. Those two are the meshes most used for painted canvases, and 18 holds more detail in the same space.

Finishing is the work of turning stitched canvas into a belt, a pillow or a stocking, and a finisher is the person or workshop that does it: needlepoint shops take pieces in, and some finishers take them by mail. Before the design is drawn, ask the finisher what size the stitching must be, in inches or in stitches, and whether extra rows are wanted around the edge.

• Belt. The stitching is about 1 1/4 inches (3.2 cm) from top edge to bottom edge, which is 22 stitches on 18 mesh, give or take a couple of stitches. Its length is the belt size less 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm), depending on the finisher: the belt size calculator works it out. Belt size is not pant size. It is measured on a belt that fits, from the buckle to the hole used most.
• Belt edges and ends. Along each long edge, finishers most often want two extra rows of stitching, or else a binding stitch, which is worked over the folded edge of the canvas. Ask which, because it changes the count. Leather covers the first and last inch or two (2.5 to 5 cm) of the stitching, so keep names and pictures clear of the ends.
• Life belt. A belt made up of a row of small pictures chosen for its wearer is planned the same way: every picture has to fit between the top edge and the bottom.
• Stocking. Full-size designs come in various sizes: about 12 1/2 by 19 inches (32 by 48 cm) is one. The design is drawn in the shape of the stocking, with the toe facing left or right: say which. A name can be stitched across the cuff, the band at the top.
• Pillow or framed picture. Pillow forms, the inserts that fill a pillow, and ready-made frames come in set sizes, such as 12, 14 or 16 inches (30, 36 or 41 cm) square for a form. Choose the form or the frame first and size the design to it. Pillows says how big the form should be against the needlepoint, and framing says how a frame is measured.
• Ornament. A flat ornament is wrapped over a board, and a little of the stitching is lost over the edge. Allow two or three extra rows of background around the design, and keep a name or a date away from the edge.
• Key fob, flask, wallet or dog collar. Makers build these to their own measurements, so get the size in stitches from the maker first. A dog collar is about 1 1/8 inches (2.9 cm) from edge to edge, which is 20 stitches on 18 mesh. A key fob or a dog collar wants two extra rows along each side, as a belt does, and the leather of a looped key fob covers about 3/4 inch (2 cm) of the stitching at each end. A fob or tag with an opening for the stitching is sized to that opening: see self-finishing.

With the size settled, the first two ways need blank mono canvas, a plain weave of single threads and the kind that painted canvases are made on. Cut it at least two inches (5 cm) bigger than the design on every side. That unstitched margin is needed for blocking, which pulls the stitched piece back into square, and for finishing. The canvas size calculator turns stitches into inches and adds the margin.

Chart a photo

The photo tool turns a JPG, PNG or WebP picture into a chart for tent stitch, the small slanted stitch that how to needlepoint teaches. The picture is charted on your own device and is not uploaded. You choose the mesh (10, 12, 13, 14 or 18), the width of the finished piece, from 1 to 20 inches (2.5 to 51 cm) by half inches, and the most thread colors the chart may use, from 2 to 30.

The chart keeps the shape of the picture, so its height follows from its width. It can be from 10 to 300 stitches wide and no more than 300 high, so on 18 mesh the widest piece is 16 1/2 inches (42 cm). Where a picture is see-through, such as a pet or a house cut out from its background, the tool charts no stitch in those squares, and the background there is yours to choose.

The chart is saved as one picture to print, in symbols, with a key under it that says which thread each symbol stands for. The tool lists each thread with its number of stitches, which is not an amount of thread: the thread calculator estimates that. Each thread is given as a color number of DMC stranded cotton, the six-strand thread also called embroidery floss. The numbers are approximate matches to the colors on the screen, so check them against real thread, and for wool or silk match by eye as the thread guide describes.

Treat the chart as a starting point. To get one worth stitching:

• Choose a picture that is easy to make out. Look for large shapes, strong contrast and little fine detail. Some pictures are too crowded to chart at all, and the cure is a different picture.
• Crop close. For a person, crop to little more than the face.
• Keep the colors few. The more colors a chart is allowed, the more mottled it comes out. Allow 6 to 12, and no more than the picture needs. The tool opens at 12.
• Try more stitches. A finer mesh or a wider piece gives more stitches, and more stitches hold more detail: the same 6 inches (15 cm) is 78 stitches across on 13 mesh and 108 on 18. The tool charts the picture again each time a setting changes, so try both and judge by eye.
• Correct it by hand. The small parts of a charted picture tend to come out short of detail. The tool does not alter a chart, so draw such a part again on graph paper at the same mesh, and stitch or paint from that drawing.

Draw it on graph paper

The graph paper tool makes a one-page sheet ruled so that one square is one stitch, at any of the same five meshes, with a heavier line every ten squares, on Letter or A4 paper. Print it at 100 percent, with no "fit to page", and measure the bar at the foot of the sheet. It must be exactly one inch (2.54 cm) long. What you draw is then the size it will be stitched.

1. Mark the outer edge of the design on the paper, counted in squares. For the belt above that is 22 squares from top to bottom, plus any extra rows the finisher wants.
2. Draw the outline lightly in pencil. Keep to the edges of the squares, so that a curve or a slant becomes a staircase.
3. Color each square in one color.
4. Write the key beside the drawing: each color and the thread it stands for.

A Letter sheet covers about 7 1/2 by 9 3/4 inches (19 by 25 cm) of stitching at every mesh, which at 18 mesh is 135 squares across and 176 down. A pillow or a stocking takes several sheets.

The sheets carry no marks for joining one to the next, so draw a design longer than the sheet in numbered lengths. End each length at a heavier line, so that the next continues from a ten: belt stitching 30 inches (76 cm) long is 540 stitches on 18 mesh, which is four lengths of 130 squares and one of 20, and all five fit one under another on a single sheet.

For a name or a date, take the letters from a charted alphabet, in which each letter is already drawn on squares. Free ones can be found online. Draw the whole name on the graph paper before stitching any of it, and count the squares it takes, across and down, against the stitches in the space it must fill. If it fits, find the middle square of the name and the middle of the space, and count outward from there so that the name sits centered.

Paint or trace it onto canvas

Painting is extra work before the first stitch, and it grows with the mesh: a canvas the size of a small ornament takes about an afternoon. For a first one, choose bold shapes on 13 mesh, not a face. Stitching from the chart skips that work and keeps the counting. Unpainted canvas also has no color behind the stitches, so it is harder to cover: work a few stitches in the margin first, and if canvas shows between them, use a thicker thread or more strands. The thread guide gives starting points.

A chart is painted by counting. Each square of the chart becomes a dot of acrylic paint on one intersection of the canvas, the crossing of two threads that one tent stitch covers. When every intersection carries one clear color, the canvas is called stitch-painted.

A drawing that is not on squares is traced, because canvas is open enough to see through. Make the drawing the size the piece will be stitched, in lines dark enough to show through the canvas, and tape it to a table. Tape the canvas over it with the canvas threads running straight up and down the drawing, so that nothing in the design leans. If the lines are hard to see, work against a bright window or on a light box. Trace with a fine-tipped permanent marker, once it has passed the test below, in the thinnest line it will make, then paint.

Three things keep the piece safe:

• Test every pen and paint first. Finished needlepoint is dampened for blocking and may one day need cleaning, and many markers sold as permanent run when they are wetted. Mark a scrap of the same canvas and let it dry, ink for 10 to 15 minutes and paint for a few days. Wet it thoroughly, and blot it hard between white paper towels. If any color comes off, that pen or paint is not safe for that canvas. Never use a ballpoint pen: its ink is one that runs.
• Keep the holes open. Too much paint plugs them and makes the canvas harder to stitch.
• Do not put canvas through a home printer. The print seldom lands squarely on the intersections, and inkjet ink can run at blocking, after all the stitching is done. Printing is a printing service's work.

How to paint a needlepoint canvas gives the method in full, with the paint and brushes to buy.

Order a painted or printed canvas

A painter works from photographs, prints, drawings or a rough sketch, and paints each canvas singly, by hand, which is why a hand-painted canvas costs more than a printed one. Painters take requests through a form on their own sites, by email or by telephone, and some makers of ready-made designs alter one, or draw a new one, to order. A printing service takes the picture as an upload to its site.

Either kind is easiest to stitch when every intersection shows one color. Not every hand-painted canvas is stitch-painted: on some, an intersection is left unclear and the stitcher decides. A print can sit out of line with the threads, because canvas is not perfectly regular, and then it is hard to tell which color an intersection should be. Some services print the design as a grid of stitches, one color to a stitch. A photograph can also be printed as it is, in full color, to be stitched over.

What to send

• The picture, even when the design is only words, so that there is no doubt what is wanted. For a pet or a portrait, send reference photos.
• The size and the mesh. Give a figure to start from: the painter can then say if the piece should be larger or smaller.
• What it will become, with the finisher's measurements. For a belt, that includes the belt size.
• The day it is needed, if there is one, so that the painter can say at the start whether it can be met.
• The thread, if you have chosen it: a painter can plan the design around wool or silk.
• What to do with the background. A painter working from a photo can leave the background out, or change it to a plain color so that the subject stands out.

What to ask

• Is it stitch-painted, or printed one color to a stitch?
• Which canvas, and which mesh? A printed canvas may be mono or interlock canvas, in one mesh only or in a choice from 10 to 18. The mesh guide explains the kinds.
• How much margin is left around the design? A printed canvas may come with as little as 3/4 inch (2 cm), not the two inches (5 cm) the piece needs. For the rest, order a bigger size and put a white border around the picture to fill it.
• Is there a sketch or a proof to approve before the canvas is painted or printed?
• Does thread come with it? A canvas sold with its threads is a kit. A printed canvas may come with threads, a needle and a full-size print-out of the design with a thread key, or alone. A painter may offer the canvas alone, with threads, or already stitched.
• What will it cost, is there a deposit, and when is the rest due? A painter may take half on ordering and half when you have approved photos of the painted canvas.
• How long will it take?
• Can it be returned? Expect a custom canvas to be taken back only if it was printed wrongly, and then only unstitched and within a set time, such as 30 days. Colors on a screen may not match the print exactly.

What affects the price

A printed canvas is priced by its size and, for some products, by the number of thread colors and the kind of product. A painter quotes for each piece, once they have seen the picture and know the size. Where a design is drawn to order, it is the drawing time that costs: a change of colors to an existing design costs less than a figure drawn new.

How long it takes

A painter may have a long wait before the work begins: get a date when the order is confirmed. The shortest finishing time for a belt is for one that arrives with its binding stitch already worked, and finishers set Christmas deadlines for stockings months ahead. For the stitching of any other piece, time yourself over one square inch, which is 169 stitches on 13 mesh and 324 on 18, and multiply by the area of the design in square inches.

For a gift, count back from the day it is needed: the finishing, then the stitching, then the wait for the canvas.

What may be put on a canvas

A photograph you took or a drawing you made is your own. With anyone else's picture, United States copyright law lets only the owner of the copyright make an adaptation of it or allow someone else to, and a drawing based on a photograph counts as an adaptation. The owner is generally the person who made the picture, so a portrait taken by a photographer is generally the photographer's.

The law does allow some uses without permission, called fair use, but whether a use is fair depends on all of its circumstances. Where there is doubt, get permission.

Painters and printing services set rules of their own. Expect them to turn away copyrighted artwork, other designers' needlepoint designs, pictures downloaded from the internet, and the names, pictures and logos of companies, products and celebrities. A logo may be taken for a business you own, or with written permission.