How to repair needlepoint

First: is it old, fragile or valuable?

If the piece is antique, fragile or valuable, do not mend it yourself. Splits, tears and missing areas in such a piece are work for a textile conservator, whose trade is preserving old textiles, and so is any repair with needle and thread. A wrong attempt can do further damage.

A piece need not be antique to be fragile. With age the fibers of a textile dry and stiffen, and in time they can crumble and snap. If the canvas or the stitching sheds powder or breaks when the piece is handled, it is a conservator's piece whatever its date. If you cannot tell how old a piece is, treat it as old.

Old needlepoint says how to handle and store such a piece, and "Who to ask" below says how to find a conservator. The mends on this page are for a canvas you are stitching now, or for a sound modern piece.

If the back is closed in. Every mend on this page is made partly from the back. A pillow, an ornament or a framed piece has its back covered, and opening it is someone else's work: that too is under "Who to ask".

A cut canvas thread or a small hole

Canvas is a stiff grid of woven threads with a hole between each thread and the next. When one of those threads is cut, as can happen while stitches are being taken out, the piece is not lost: a cut thread, or a hole up to about half an inch (1.3 cm) across, is mended with a patch.

1. If the area is already stitched, take out stitches until about half an inch (1.3 cm) of bare canvas shows on every side of the damage: "Taking stitches out safely" below says how. Clip off any cut ends of canvas thread that stick out.
2. Cut a patch of blank canvas of the same weave and the same mesh, which is the number of holes to the inch: canvas and mesh sizes describes both. Make it big enough to cover the bare canvas, about an inch and a half (4 cm) square. With no spare canvas of that weave and mesh, buy a small piece. Or cut one from the outer edge of the margin, the bare canvas around the design, but only where that still leaves 2 inches (5 cm) of margin, the least a piece should keep.
3. Lay the patch on the back of the canvas, centered over the damage. Line up its threads with the threads of the canvas so that the holes match exactly.
4. Baste it there: a few small stitches of sewing thread, so that it cannot shift.
5. Stitch the design again with new thread, taking every stitch through both layers as if they were one. Those stitches fasten the patch to the canvas. How to needlepoint teaches the stitch.

Lined up thread for thread, under stitches that cover the canvas, a patch this small does not show. Do not glue a patch or a cut thread: glue and adhesive tape are kept off any textile that is meant to be preserved.

One cut thread on mono canvas

On mono canvas, and only there, a single cut thread can be replaced by a new canvas thread woven into its place, with no second layer behind the stitches. The patch is the simpler mend; the woven thread leaves the canvas as it was. On any other canvas, or where more than one thread is cut, use the patch.

To tell which canvas you have, look at where its threads cross. Mono canvas is woven of single threads, each passing over one and under the next. Interlock canvas has pairs of finer threads one way, twisted around each single thread they cross. Penelope canvas, which is double-thread canvas, has pairs both ways.

1. Stitch up to about half an inch (1.3 cm) from the cut on every side, or take stitches out until that much canvas is bare. The stitches around the bare canvas hold the mend.
2. Ease each cut end out of the weave, back as far as the stitches. Push it through to the back and weave it in and out of the backs of the stitches there.
3. Draw one thread out of the outer edge of the margin: the top or bottom edge if the cut thread is horizontal, a side edge if it is vertical. It must be long enough to cross the bare canvas and run under the stitches on both sides.
4. Thread it into a tapestry needle, the blunt needle that needlepoint is stitched with. Run it through the backs of the stitches on one side, weave it across the bare canvas where the cut thread ran, over and under the crossing threads exactly as that thread did, and run it through the backs of the stitches on the other side.
5. Fill the bare canvas with stitches.

Woven at the same tension as the threads beside it, the new thread cannot be told from them once it is stitched over. Under an open stitch, one that leaves canvas showing, it can.

A large hole or tear

Over a bigger hole or a tear, a patch put in at home may show. Hiding the mend takes an expert, who may weave the canvas back thread by thread before making a stitch. That is a textile conservator's work: see "Who to ask" below.

Taking stitches out safely

The blade must touch stitching thread and nothing else.

• Tools. Fine-pointed embroidery scissors, tweezers and a tapestry needle; a magnifier helps. Not a seam ripper, the hooked blade made for opening sewn seams: it is hard to stop where you meant to, and canvas threads go with the stitches.
• Cut on the front, one stitch at a time. Slide one point of the scissors under a stitch, lift until only stitching thread lies across the blade, and snip. The stitching thread lies on top; the canvas threads are the grid beneath.
• Pull from the back. Turn the canvas over and draw the cut pieces out with the tweezers, loosening any that cling with the needle. If a stitch resists, do not tug: try it from the other side.
• Two or three stitches just made need no blade: take the thread out of the needle and ease them out with its end.
• Fasten the ends that are left. Take out a few more stitches of each cut thread, until its loose end is long enough to thread into a needle. Run it under a few stitches on the back and trim it.
• Use new thread. Thread that has been taken out is roughened by the canvas and will not stitch smoothly again.
• Stop when you are tired or out of patience, and come back later. That is when canvas can get cut.

Worn or missing stitches

Mend frayed stitches soon. On a sound modern piece, an area that is worn, bare or coming undone is stitched again:

1. Look at the canvas under the gap. If any of its threads are cut or broken, patch it first, as above.
2. Take out the frayed stitches and fasten the loose ends beside them, as in "Taking stitches out safely".
3. Thread the needle with new thread of the same fiber and thickness as the original, which the thread guide helps to name, and as near its color as you can get: see "Matching thread" below.
4. Begin by running the needle under a few stitches on the back, fill the bare canvas with the same stitch as the area around it, and end under stitches on the back. Starting and ending threads has both in full, and the stitch library has diagrams for telling one stitch from another.

A stitch that was missed when the piece was stitched can be put in later, as in step 4.

If wool or silk stitches are missing and wear does not explain it, look for insects before you mend: clothes moths and carpet beetles both eat wool and silk. Old needlepoint has the first steps for a piece with insects in it.

A snag

A snag is a loop of stitching thread pulled up above the surface. Do not cut it off: that cuts the stitch. Take the slack through to the back.

Turn the piece over, find the back of the loose stitch and gently pull the thread on each side of it until the loop on the front lies flat.

If it will not, use a snag repair tool: a fine needle, pointed and smooth at one end and roughened at the other to grip thread. Push the pointed end down through the canvas at the foot of the loop, where the thread comes up. Wind the loop onto the rough end with a twist of the tool, then pull the tool right through to the back, and the loop with it. Use the finest tool that will do the job.

A stitch that is only a little loose, and that you would not notice without hunting for it, can be left alone.

Matching thread

• Start with thread left over from the piece. Its label gives the color number and the dye lot, the batch it was dyed in. A new batch of the same color can differ by a shade, and with some threads by much more, so lay new thread against the piece before you stitch.
• With no thread and no label, match by eye against real thread, or a color card made with real thread: colors on a screen are only approximate. Thread makers add and drop colors, some of them once or twice a year. If yours is no longer made, choose the nearest color in the same fiber.
• On a faded piece, look at the back. Light fades the dyes in textiles, and thread is not dyed to match faded colors. Choose colors from the back, where they are still strong, then lay them against the faded stitches that are staying. Where a full-strength color would stand out, choose one between the two.
• Test before any water. If the piece will be dampened, for cleaning or for blocking (pinning a damp piece out square to dry), first test the new thread for running color, as how to block needlepoint describes.

Rugs and chair seats

A rug or a seat goes on being used, so a mend may take in the stitches that are about to wear through as well as the places already bare.

A sound modern rug or seat with a few worn stitches and whole canvas can be mended as in "Worn or missing stitches", if its back can be reached. Needlepoint that would have to come off its chair or stool goes to a textile conservator. It may be taken off the seat, cleaned and assessed. Missing wool can be replaced and bare canvas covered, sound original stitches are left, and the piece can be sewn back onto the seat by hand.

A needlepoint rug is stitched on canvas, not woven on a loom or knotted as many handmade rugs are, so ask a rug restorer whether they work on needlepoint before you send one. Such a rug is blocked into a rectangle when it is new and can lose that shape with age or in washing. A restorer can block it back.

Who to ask, and what to expect

• A finisher is the person who makes stitched canvas into pillows, ornaments and the like. Ask one whether they will open a made-up modern piece, so that its back can be reached, and close it again. For a framed piece, ask the framer.
• A rug restorer who works on needlepoint takes a rug.
• A textile conservator takes anything the first section rules out, a seat that has to come off its chair, and a large hole or tear in any piece.

To find a conservator in the United States, search for the words "find a conservator". They lead to the directory that the professional body of conservators keeps of members whose work has been reviewed by their peers: choose textiles as the specialty and enter where you live.

• Three warning signs: a promise of fast, cheap work; no plain answer about what will be used and how; no chance to see the piece while it is being worked on.
• Before any work, expect a written report of the examination, with the treatment proposed, the result to expect and an estimate of the cost, for you to approve.
• Afterward, expect a report of what was done, listing the materials and the methods, perhaps with pictures from before and after. Keep it for whoever treats the piece next.

Conserving and restoring are different jobs. A conservator treats a piece only as far as it needs in order to be preserved, stored or shown safely, and no treatment can be completely undone. Restoring goes further: lost canvas is replaced and missing stitching is worked again. Settle with the conservator before any repair how far it will go: whether the aim is to make the piece stronger or to make it look better, what new materials will go into it, and how the new work will be told from the original.