Needlepoint kits

What is in a kit

Most kits hold four things.

• A canvas with the design on it. Canvas is a stiff, open weave that the stitches cover. In many kits the design is printed on it in color: a printed canvas is also called pre-printed or stamped, and many carry a strip of color blocks along one edge, one for each color, as a key. The canvas is often interlock, a light weave that holds its shape: see canvas and mesh sizes. In some kits the canvas is painted by hand, which costs more. A few kits hold blank canvas, and the design is counted onto it from written instructions and stitch diagrams, as a chart is: see "Kit or chart?" below.
• Thread in every color of the design. It may be wool, cotton or silk; wool and other thick threads are also called yarn. Stranded cotton, also called embroidery floss, is six fine strands that pull apart, and the instructions say how many to use together. The thread comes cut into lengths, with little to spare, or as whole skeins or cards, the bundles thread is sold in, with some left over.
• A needle. It is a tapestry needle, which has a blunt tip and a large eye. Kits usually hold one, and some hold two. Look for it in a small packet at the edge of the canvas, or pushed through the canvas itself.
• Instructions, often with a picture of the finished piece. They name the stitch to use. Some kits add a chart of the design as a second guide.

Some kits hold more:

• A stitch guide: notes that suggest a stitch for each part of the design, with the thread and the number of strands for it. Its decorative stitches are optional: the whole piece can be worked in tent stitch, the basic stitch, a short slanted stitch over one crossing of the canvas threads. See what a stitch guide is.
• Tools. Some kits made for beginners add scissors, a needle threader, a needle minder, which is a magnet to park the needle on, or the stretcher bars and tacks described in the next section. Tools and supplies says what each is for.
• A self-finishing item. Finishing means making the stitched canvas up into an object: a pillow, an ornament, a framed picture. Some small kits come with an acrylic coaster or a leather key fob or tag that the stitched piece is fitted into at home. See self-finishing needlepoint.

What is often missing

• The thread, sometimes. The word kit is used loosely: a listing may call a printed canvas and a guide to its colors a kit, with the thread as an extra to choose, and a canvas sold on its own comes without thread. Needlepoint shops often offer to choose the threads for a canvas, which is called kitting it: a kitted canvas usually comes with its threads and a needle, and sometimes with a stitch guide.
• Enough thread to change the stitch. A kit's thread is measured for the stitch its instructions name, so work that stitch. Tent stitch is worked three ways, half cross, continental and basketweave, which look the same from the front. On the back, continental and basketweave lay down much more thread than half cross, so thread measured for half cross can run out in basketweave. If it does run short, look in the instructions for how to order more. Basketweave vs continental compares the three.
• The finishing. The stuffing for a pillow or the picture frame is not usually in a kit. Unless the kit has a self-finishing item, the stitched piece still has to be made up, by you or by a finisher a needlepoint shop sends it to. See needlepoint finishing.
• Stretcher bars. These are four wooden bars that slot together into a rectangle. The canvas is tacked to them and stays taut while you stitch, so it is pulled out of shape less and the stitches come out more even. They are optional: without them you stitch with the canvas in your hand and straighten it afterward. See frames and stretcher bars.
• Scissors. One small, sharp pair is enough, since the only thing to cut is thread.
• A spare needle. With one needle in the kit, losing it stops the work, so a spare packet is worth having. The table in needle sizes gives the size for the mesh of the canvas, which the next section explains.

What to check before buying

Go by the list of contents, not by a word such as "complete" in the name: is the thread included, and is anything for the finishing? Then look at the canvas itself if you can. If you cannot, buy where a kit can be returned.

• The mesh. Mesh, also called count, is the number of holes in an inch of canvas, and so the number of tent stitches in an inch: 10 on 10 mesh canvas, 18 on 18 mesh. A lower number means bigger holes and bigger stitches. Canvas and mesh sizes compares them.
• Words for very coarse and very fine. Quick point, also written quickpoint, is needlepoint on very coarse canvas, 3 to 7 holes to the inch, in thick yarn. Petit point is very small tent stitches on fine canvas: 16 mesh and finer, though the name is also kept for 22 mesh and finer alone (see petit point and gros point). Miniature work is on 22 mesh and up. A kit may mix petit point with larger stitches, and a petit point kit can be bought by mistake for an ordinary one, so read the mesh number: at 22 or higher the stitches are very small, whatever the kit is called.
• The size. Find out whether the size given is the stitched design or the whole canvas. The canvas is the larger of the two, because bare canvas is left all around the design, and stretcher bars are bought to fit the canvas.
• The print. Find a line in the design that should be straight, such as the wall of a building or a border, and see whether it stays on one canvas thread or drifts across to the next ones. A small drift happens now and then, because a canvas can slip as it is printed and is rarely woven perfectly straight; it matters most on geometric designs and borders. Treat more than two rows out as a fault, and return the kit. Look too for colors that have run into each other, and for detail too fine to stitch.
• The thread. Wool and stranded cotton are both good to find in a kit. Acrylic yarn wears less well, and stands up less well to being unpicked.

Tapestry kits and other names

A tapestry kit is the same thing under another name: embroidery on canvas is called needlepoint in America and often tapestry in Britain. In Germany the name for canvas work is Gobelin. Embroidery is the name of the whole family of crafts, so an embroidery kit is a needlepoint kit only if what you stitch on is canvas. Cross-stitch kits and crewel kits are for other crafts: cross stitch is worked in crosses on fabric, and crewel is wool embroidery stitched freely across firm fabric. See needlepoint vs cross stitch.

Kits for beginners

For a first kit, choose a small, simple design in a few flat colors, on canvas with larger holes: 10 to 14 mesh is easier to see than 18 mesh, and 13 is a usual mesh for a first piece. Light colors are easier to see than dark ones, and wool is forgiving to stitch with. For size, think of an ornament or a coaster about 4 inches (10 cm) across: see how to needlepoint.

Kits for children

For a child, look for large holes, thick yarn and large areas of one color. Some kits sold for children are on 7 or 10 mesh canvas and hold yarn, a needle with a large eye and a needle threader. Coarser canvas still, 3 to 5 holes to the inch, is another choice. So is plastic canvas: it does not fray, a wrong stitch can be taken out without harming it, and the kind with 7 holes to the inch takes thick yarn. The needle in all of these is blunt. An adult does the cutting: the yarn, and plastic canvas where it has to be cut to shape.

How to start a kit

1. Check that the package holds everything the kit's instructions or listing say it should.
2. Read all the instructions before the first stitch. Note the stitch they name and how many strands of thread go in the needle. If they name no stitch, ask the maker before you start.
3. Bind any bare edge of the canvas with masking tape, so that it cannot fray or snag the thread: fold a strip over the edge, half on the front and half on the back. An edge already covered with tape, or with a strip of cloth sewn over it, needs nothing.
4. Sort the thread by color, and use the kit's color key or chart to match each thread to its printed color. Settle close shades now: they may be printed further apart than the threads are, so that they can be told from each other.
5. If the canvas has a strip of color blocks at its edge, fasten a short piece of each thread to its block with a few stitches worked into it. The strip then shows each thread beside its printed color, a help when you pick out a color by artificial light.
6. If you are using stretcher bars, mount the canvas on them now. Frames and stretcher bars has the steps.
7. Stitch each color where the canvas shows it. How to needlepoint shows how a tent stitch is made, how long to cut the thread, and how to start and end it. Where a crossing of the canvas threads is printed in two colors, use the color that covers more of it. A kit's chart, if it has one, settles a doubt.

Keep the thread labels until the piece is done: they carry the color number and the dye lot, the batch the thread was dyed in, which you will need if you have to buy more. If the thread came without labels, ask the maker of the kit.

A stitched canvas is usually pulled a little out of shape. Blocking, which is dampening the piece and pinning it out square to dry, straightens it before it is made up. Read that guide before you wet anything: it starts with a test for colors that run.

Kit or chart?

A kit is the easier start. A chart costs less and leaves the size and the thread to you.

A kit makes the choices for you: the design, the canvas, the mesh, the thread and the colors. Where the design is printed or painted on the canvas, there is nothing to count. Screen printing and heat transfer limit the colors a design can have, so a design printed in either way is usually a simple one.

A chart is the design as a grid on paper: each stitch is a square with a symbol in it, and a key says which thread color each symbol stands for. You work it onto blank canvas by counting, one square of the chart to one tent stitch, so you count squares on the paper and threads on the canvas. Counting takes care: see how to read a needlepoint chart. And blank canvas shows wherever the thread does not cover it, so the stitch and the thread both have to cover well.

How to make your own kit

A kit made at home holds what a bought one holds, with a chart as the instructions. The charts on this site are free to print. Each pattern page gives the chart and its key, the stitched size and the canvas to cut at 10, 12, 13, 14 and 18 mesh, and the number of stitches in each color. For a first one, each of the easy patterns takes five colors or fewer.

Settle three things first, in this order.

1. What the piece will be. Decide how it will be finished before buying anything: an ornament, a coaster, a pillow, a framed picture. The finish sets the size the piece must be, and some finishes need rows of plain background stitched beyond the design. Needlepoint finishing says what to plan for.
2. The mesh. The stitched size is the number of stitches divided by the mesh, so the same chart comes out larger on 13 mesh than on 18. The canvas size calculator works out the size for any chart and mesh.
3. The kind of thread. Mesh sets the weight of thread: thicker threads for lower mesh numbers, finer threads for higher ones. Tapestry wool is a thick wool that is not divided, and 18 mesh is too fine for it. Stranded cotton is used several strands together; for 7 or 8, take the six of one length with one or two more from a second length. The thread guide has the full table. The color numbers in the chart's key are the color numbers of DMC stranded cotton: the thread guide says how to match wool or another thread.

How the choice of mesh works out:

Then gather these.

• Blank canvas, cut at least 2 inches (5 cm) larger than the design on every side, as in the table. If the piece is going to a finisher or a framer, ask what they need before you cut. Choose mono canvas, a plain weave of single threads, which is strong and flexible, and sturdier than interlock.
• Thread in each color of the key. The thread calculator turns the number of stitches in each color into an estimate in yards for your mesh and stitch. It also says how to turn yards into skeins. Its yards are of thread as it goes into the needle, so stranded cotton stitched 8 strands together takes a third as much again of the six-strand thread. The table's estimates are for basketweave throughout, with 30 percent added for starting, ending and the tail left in the needle. Buy all of one color at once, from one dye lot.
• A tapestry needle to fit the mesh. A higher number is a finer needle: size 16 or 18 for 10 mesh, 18 or 20 for 12 mesh, 20 for 13 and 14 mesh, and 22 for 18 mesh. Needle sizes says how to test the fit.
• Masking tape, to bind the cut edges of the canvas as in step 3 of "How to start a kit".
• Scissors: a small pair with sharp points for thread, and a sturdier pair for cutting the canvas.
• Stretcher bars and tacks, if you want them. Bars are bought in two pairs, one the width of the canvas and one the height, so an 8 inch square of canvas takes two pairs of 8 inch bars. Bars this short come in whole inches, so cut the 13 mesh canvas of the table 10 inches (25 cm) square, for 10 inch bars. The tacks should be rustproof. See frames and stretcher bars before buying.
• The printed chart with its key, and a bag that holds everything and keeps the canvas and thread protected.

Work the chart in continental or basketweave: both cover blank canvas well, and half cross sits badly on mono canvas. Start in the middle of the design unless it has a clear edge to count from: how to read a needlepoint chart says how to find the middle of the chart and of the canvas.