How to stitch letters, names and dates in needlepoint

What a stitched letter is

A letter for stitching starts as a small chart: filled squares on a grid. Each filled square is one tent stitch, the slanted stitch that covers one intersection of the canvas, the place where two threads cross. How to needlepoint shows where the needle goes. A plain L five stitches tall and three wide is a column of five squares with two more beside the lowest.

To stitch from the paper, find a filled square, find the matching intersection on the canvas, and make one stitch there. That is counting a chart onto canvas, and how to read a needlepoint chart has ways to keep a long count. The canvas may be blank, or a painted or printed canvas with a plain space left for a name.

The letters come from a charted alphabet: every letter, and usually every numeral, drawn on a grid. Needlepoint designers, kit makers and shops publish them, some free, and letters can also be drawn from scratch on squared paper. One alphabet serves any canvas. Only the size changes: the same word comes out smaller on 18 mesh than on 13, because mesh is the number of stitches to the inch.

How tall letters are

Height is counted in stitches. Divide it by the mesh for inches; the canvas size calculator does the sum for any mesh.

At five stitches tall, letters are plain strokes one stitch thick. Most are three or four stitches wide; an I can be one and an M five. Taller letters have room for more: at 13 stitches, capitals can carry serifs, the small strokes at the ends of a letter's main strokes.

Lowercase letters need more height than the capitals beside them. Letters such as g, j, p, q and y hang below the line the capitals stand on, and in some alphabets a few lowercase letters are also taller than the capitals. Count the height of a line from the top of its tallest letter to the bottom of its lowest.

Spacing

Between letters, leave at least one empty stitch. Between words, leave more than between letters: three or four stitches for letters five stitches tall. Between one line and the next, leave at least two empty rows, a row being one stitch of height, and more where lowercase letters hang below the line, so that they stay clear of the capitals beneath. Draw the line at the size it will be stitched, as in the steps below, and look at it from arm's length: if the letters or words run together, add a stitch.

Fitting and centering a line

1. Count the space. The space is the blank part of the canvas where the lettering will go, such as the plain band across the top of a stocking. Count the vertical threads across it and the horizontal threads down it. Each thread is room for one stitch, because a stitch sits on an intersection of threads, not in a hole. For a rough figure first, measure the space in inches and multiply by the mesh.
2. Draw the whole line on squared paper. Copy each letter from the alphabet, filling one square for each stitch, and leave the empty squares between letters and between words. Any squared paper serves for counting. The graph paper tool prints paper ruled for 10, 12, 13, 14 or 18 mesh, so a line drawn on it is also the size it will be stitched. Print it at 100 percent: the bar at the foot of the sheet must measure exactly one inch (2.54 cm).
3. Count what is drawn. Count the width from the first filled square to the last, empty squares included, and the height. Count every letter, because letters are not all one width.
4. Check the fit. The line fits when it is narrower than the count across the space and shorter than the count down, with background to spare on every side. Then lay the blank space of the canvas over the drawing: canvas is an open grid, so a line drawn on paper ruled at the same mesh shows through it. If the line is too wide, too tall or cramped, change it now, on paper: take a smaller or narrower alphabet, break the line into two, or use initials in place of a name. Do not close up the gaps between letters to gain room.
5. Find the two middles. Halve the width of the line to find its middle, and halve the width of the space to find where that middle goes. A line 37 stitches wide in a space 61 threads across leaves 24 threads over, 12 on each side. The line's middle stitch, its 19th, goes on the space's middle thread, the 31st, and the first letter begins on the 13th thread, after the 12 left bare. Do the same with the two heights: letters 5 stitches tall in a space 11 threads deep have 3 rows of background above them and 3 below.
6. Mark the place. Make one small stitch of scrap thread over the intersection where the middle stitch of the line will go, halfway up the letters. Take the marking thread out once the first stitches are in.
7. Stitch outward from the mark. Stitch the letter the mark falls in, or the nearest letter if it falls in a gap. Check the letter against the paper, then work outward one letter at a time, to one side and then to the other. End the thread when a letter is done. Do not carry it across the back to the next letter, where dark thread behind pale stitches can show through as a shadow. Start and end a dark thread under stitches of its own color, for the same reason.

When both counts are even, no stitch is in the middle. The middle of the line is the join between its two middle stitches, and it belongs between the two middle threads of the space: 36 stitches in 60 threads again leaves 12 on each side. Mark the stitch on one side of the join and note which. Heights go the same way. When one count is odd and the other even, the margins cannot be equal: one side gets a thread more than the other.

For a saying in several lines, draw every line. The block is as wide as its longest line. Center the shorter lines on it, or line them all up at the left or at the right, and try the layouts on paper. Then count the height of the whole block, the lines and the empty rows between them, and center that in the space.

Stitch from the paper. If you draw the letters on the canvas instead, first put the pen through the wetting test in the chart guide's steps: ink that bleeds stains the thread.

Which stitch

The choice is the same for letters counted from paper and for letters already painted on the canvas.

Tent stitch is the usual stitch for letters. It is the smallest stitch on canvas, so it shows the most detail where space is short. It is worked in more than one way, all alike from the front. For thin strokes use continental, which is worked in straight rows and can follow a line one stitch wide in any direction, though a thin line that climbs to the left comes out stepped, as described below. Strokes several stitches thick, as in large capitals across the top of a stocking, can also be worked in basketweave, which is worked only in diagonal rows. Basketweave vs continental compares the two. Stitch tent stitch letters first and the background around them afterward.

Color. Choose a thread that stands well apart from the background, dark on pale or pale on dark. Letters close to the background in color can fade when the piece is seen from across a room.

Thin strokes that lean left. Every tent stitch slants the same way, from lower left to upper right. A stroke one stitch wide that climbs to the left runs against that slant and comes out as a row of steps. In thin letters that is the left arm of a V and the right leg of an A.

The remedy is cross stitch: two slanted stitches, one crossing the other, which together lean neither way, so the line comes out smoother. Work each cross over the one intersection a tent stitch would cover, not as the larger cross over two threads each way. Finish each cross before starting the next, and keep the top stitch slanting the same way in every one. A line of crosses is thicker than tent stitch and stands a little above it.

Backstitch for script and fine lines. Backstitch makes a line where tent stitch makes filled squares, and it suits flowing script and thin lettering. Each stitch runs from one canvas hole to another, over one thread or several, horizontally, vertically or on a slant. Come up one stitch's length along the line and go down at its start. Come up a stitch's length farther on, go back down into the hole the first stitch came up through, and continue so to the end of the line.

On a painted canvas, photograph the lettering before stitching over it, as a record of where it goes. Stitch the background in tent stitch first, then work the letters on top of it; the backstitches follow the painted line, each as long as the line allows. For a blank canvas, draw the letters on the squared paper as lines that join corners of the squares, along the ruled lines or on a slant, and stitch from that: a corner where four squares meet is a hole.

The thread sets the weight of a backstitched line: a thin thread for fine letters, a thicker one for bold. With a thread made of strands, that is fewer strands or more.

Other stitches for thick letters. Large letters with room inside their strokes can be filled with an upright stitch such as Parisian, whose stitches stand vertically over two and four threads. Strokes a few stitches thick can be covered in satin stitch: flat stitches laid side by side across the stroke until it is covered. With either, see that no bare canvas shows between the stitches and that the word can still be read.

The background. If the background is to be a patterned stitch in place of plain tent stitch, choose it before the lettering is stitched; which stitch to use lists the kinds. A pattern that runs horizontally or vertically can make letters hard to read, and one that runs diagonally interferes less. A box of plain tent stitch around the lettering keeps a patterned background from crowding it.

On a stocking, an ornament and a belt

Stocking. A name goes across the cuff, the band at the top. Stitch the name before the stocking is blocked, which is dampening the canvas and pinning it square to dry, and before it is sent for finishing, the work of turning a stitched canvas into the object. How to finish a needlepoint stocking covers a name added by the canvas maker or by the finisher, and a cuff that is already stitched.

Ornament. A small round ornament has room for initials or a date in the smallest letters. A round is narrower above and below its middle, so count the space along the top and bottom rows the letters will use, not across the widest part. Keep lettering a few rows in from the edge, because two or three rows of stitching are usually lost at the edge when an ornament is finished.

Belt. A belt leaves little height, about 22 stitches on 18 mesh, and the letters need background above and below them. In 22 stitches, an alphabet 10 stitches tall leaves six rows above the letters and six below. Leather covers the first and last inch or two (2.5 to 5 cm) of the stitching, so keep initials and dates away from the ends. How to make a needlepoint belt has the sizes.

Three initials set together are a monogram. They go either in the order of the name, first, middle and last, or with the initial of the last name larger in the middle, the first initial at its left and the middle initial at its right. The second way takes letters of two heights.

Signing and dating a piece

Initials and a date tell whoever has the piece later who stitched it and when. Stitch them before the piece goes for finishing.

• What to stitch. Initials and the year at the least, and a name and the whole date where there is room. A year can be all four numerals or the last two. See that the alphabet has numerals and any punctuation the date needs: small alphabets may have capitals and numerals only. In a five-stitch alphabet a numeral is about three stitches wide, so a year of four numerals, with one empty stitch between them, is about 15 stitches wide.
• Where. A corner is one place for it, such as a bottom corner. Keep the signature well inside the edge of the stitching, where neither finishing nor the lip of a frame will hide it.
• In tent stitch. Plan it before the background in that corner is stitched. The letters take the place of background stitches; they cannot be added on top of them.
• In backstitch. A signature can be backstitched on top of the stitching. Lay a strand across the place first, to see that the color shows against the stitches under it.