Painted, printed and charted needlepoint

The kinds in short

Needlepoint canvas is a stiff, open grid of threads with a hole between each. The place where two threads cross is an intersection, and the basic stitch, tent stitch, is one slanted stitch over one intersection. A design comes in one of six forms.

A hand-painted canvas costs more than a printed one: it is a painter's labor, while a print is made in quantity. A chart costs least of all.

Hand-painted and stitch-painted canvases

A hand-painted canvas is painted in acrylic paint by a painter who matches colors, counts canvas threads and clears paint out of the holes on every copy. Nearly every painted canvas is on mono canvas, a plain weave of single threads, and most are 13 or 18 mesh, which means 13 or 18 holes to the inch: see canvas and mesh sizes.

Why paint by hand, when the stitches will cover it? In most needlepoint the stitches hide the canvas entirely, so the paint is only the pattern, and what matters is where each color sits. A painter can put each color on the intersection it belongs to. Screen printing, the traditional way of printing a canvas, is more likely to put a color in the wrong place.

Stitch-painted or freely painted. A canvas that is not stitch-painted is painted freely, as a picture: a brushstroke may leave two or more colors on one intersection, and you decide which to use, a choice some stitchers like. Many canvases mix the two ways: stitch-painted in some parts, freely painted and shaded in others. Shading is a color painted in lighter and darker tones to give a shape depth.

What you get. Most hand-painted canvases are sold as the canvas only: no thread, and often no chart and no stitch diagrams, the small drawings that show how to work a stitch. You choose the thread, and the stitches too if you want more than tent stitch: see what a stitch guide is. Many shops will choose the threads and sell them with the canvas. That is called kitting, and the canvas is then a kitted canvas. The thread guide says which thread fits which mesh, and the thread calculator helps with how much to buy.

What to look at before buying one.

• The edges of the shapes, where one color meets another. On a well-painted canvas an edge follows the canvas threads, so each intersection along it is clearly one color or the other. Curves are the hard part even then, because a curve cannot follow straight threads.
• The paint. A faded or unpainted patch leaves its color in doubt.
• The holes. The needle and thread will not pass easily through a hole plugged with paint.
• The shading. How much is there, and do you want to stitch all of it?

Printed canvases

On a printed canvas the design is put on by screen printing, by heat transfer or by digital printing. Screen printing and heat transfer limit the colors a design can have.

Printed canvases are common in kits. A kit holds the canvas, the thread, a needle and instructions, and sometimes a chart of the design as a second guide. Kit canvases are often interlock canvas, a weave that locks every intersection in place.

What printing can get wrong.

• The print may not sit square on the canvas threads, because a canvas can slip as it is printed and is seldom woven perfectly straight. A line that should stay on one row of intersections then drifts onto the next, and where it crosses over, an intersection carries two colors.
• Ink can bleed or smear, so that neighboring colors blur into each other.
• A print can show detail finer than the stitches. A stitch is one intersection in one color, so anything smaller cannot be stitched as printed.

Printing varies from maker to maker, and some printed canvases have one clear color on every intersection, as a stitch-painted canvas does. Look at the canvas itself before buying, or buy where it can be returned. Find a line that should be straight, such as a border or the wall of a building: it should run with the canvas threads and not lean to the left or the right. A crooked print matters most on geometric designs and on borders. Treat a line that is more than two rows out as a fault.

Other names. A printed canvas is also called stamped or preprinted, and screen printing is also called silkscreen; serigraph is a word first used for an artist's screen print. The cloth under a stamped needlepoint is still called canvas. Stamped cross stitch is a different craft: cross stitch on fabric with the crosses already printed where they go.

In Britain needlepoint is often called tapestry, so a printed kit is sold there as a tapestry kit. Gobelin is a group of needlepoint stitches, such as upright Gobelin, and in Germany the name for canvas work, needlepoint's older name. Needlepoint vs cross stitch and needlepoint vs embroidery sort out the names.

How to stitch a painted or printed canvas

Each stitch covers one intersection, in the color on that intersection. Tent stitch will do for every part, and how to needlepoint shows how to make it. Its three forms, half cross, continental and basketweave, look the same from the front and differ on the back of the canvas, so they use different amounts of thread: basketweave vs continental compares them.

Before the first stitch:

1. Bind the cut edges of the canvas, if they are not bound already, so that they do not unravel or catch the thread. Fold masking tape over each edge, half on the front and half on the back.
2. Sort the threads by color.
3. On a kit canvas, find the strip of color blocks printed along the edge, one for each color in the design, and fasten a short piece of each thread to its block with a stitch or two. Refer to the strip as you stitch: the printed colors do not always match the threads, because a maker may print close shades further apart so that they can be told from each other.
4. If you use a frame, mount the canvas on it.

With a kit, use the stitch its instructions name: the thread is usually measured for it. If that is half cross, use half cross: continental and basketweave take more thread, and the kit may run short.

What to stitch first. Stitch lighter colors before darker ones: fibers from a dark thread already in the canvas can be pulled through with a light one stitched beside it, and a dark thread lying on the back of the canvas can show through light stitches as a shadow. So where the background is lighter than the design, stitch the background first. Otherwise stitch the design first, small details early, and leave the background for last, which is the usual order. A new stitcher can begin with a patch of background either way, where there is room to settle into the stitch.

In continental or basketweave, start an area at its upper right if you are right-handed, since both are worked across and downward, and at its lower left if you are left-handed. A row of half cross starts at its left end.

Where an intersection carries two colors, use the one that covers more of it. Where the two share it evenly, choose the color that keeps the edge of the shape smooth, so that a curve still reads as a curve and not as big steps, and choose the same way each time. A picture of the design, or a kit's chart, settles a doubt. On a heavily shaded canvas, a black-and-white photocopy made before any stitching shows the lights and darks plainly, and where one shade gives way to the next.

When the stitching is done, block the canvas: dampen it and pin it out square to dry. Water can make some dyes run, so test the threads and the paint or print first: how to block needlepoint gives the test and the steps.

Charted designs

On a chart each stitch is a square marked with a symbol, and a key says which thread color each symbol stands for. On a tent stitch chart one square is one stitch. The canvas is blank, white or colored, and you count squares on the chart and threads on the canvas to find where each stitch goes: how to read a needlepoint chart gives the method. On a chart the design is counted in first, so leave a background lighter than the design for last all the same, and carry no dark thread across the back of canvas it will cover.

Charts come in books, magazines and leaflets. With no paint under the stitches, bare canvas shows wherever thread does not cover it, so work a chart in stitches that leave no canvas showing, such as tent stitch.

Counted canvas, or counted canvas needlepoint, is the name for designs sold as written instructions, usually with stitch diagrams, for working on blank canvas. Some come as kits with the blank canvas and all the thread. They are counted onto the canvas as a chart is. Bargello, needlepoint in upright stitches arranged in zigzags and waves, is counted work too.

A cross-stitch chart can be stitched on needlepoint canvas, one square to one tent stitch. Choose a chart made of full stitches only: part stitches, smaller than a full cross, need Penelope canvas, the double-thread canvas, whose threads run in pairs. Needlepoint vs cross stitch says what else changes.

A chart can also be painted onto canvas at home: see how to paint your own canvas.

Trammed canvases

On a trammed canvas the design has been laid by hand in long horizontal stitches of wool, each as long as its color runs in that row. You stitch over every laid stitch in wool of the same color: its color shows which wool to use and its length how many stitches to make. The technique is called tramé.

• The wool to work the trammed part is usually included.
• Often only the design is trammed. The background is then bare canvas: its color is your choice, and its wool is bought separately. Some canvases are trammed all over.
• Stitch over the laid wool in half cross, unless the instructions that come with the canvas name continental. Part of the fine detail, such as faces and hands, may come already worked in small stitches.
• The laid wool stays under the stitches as padding and adds wear, which is why trammed work is used for chair seats, rugs and pillows.
• Tramé is commonly done on Penelope canvas.

Preworked canvases

On a preworked canvas the motif in the middle, often flowers or fruit, comes already stitched, and the background is left for you to work in a color that suits the room. Preworked canvases were popular in the middle of the 20th century, often for chair seats, and many, like many trammed canvases, were made on the Portuguese island of Madeira. For the age and care of one that has been handed down, see old needlepoint.

Nearly all are on Penelope canvas. Stitched over its pairs of threads, it takes large stitches, called gros point. With the pairs pushed apart it takes small ones, called petit point, four in the space of one large stitch. On many preworked canvases only the large stitches of the background are left to do, and the motif may be in small ones.

Fill in the background with tent stitch. For a seat or a pillow use continental: half cross, the other form usual on Penelope canvas, wears least well of the three. Basketweave can be used, but it is harder to keep track of over the paired threads. Do not switch between half cross and the other two within the background: basketweave vs continental says why.

The thread depends on which stitches are left to do.

• All large stitches. Tapestry wool, a single thick strand that is not divided, is a good choice for the most common size of Penelope canvas, 10/20, where the large stitches are 10 to the inch. Some makes are thin for that size, so work a few stitches in the margin first.
• Small stitches around the motif. A large stitch needs its whole space, all four small intersections, to be empty. Where the motif has taken some of the four, fill the rest with small stitches in the background color. Tapestry wool is too thick for stitches that small. Persian wool, three strands that separate, does both from the same skein, so the color matches: all three strands in the large stitches and one in the small. The thread guide gives the strands for each mesh.

The thread calculator estimates how much a background takes. Buy it all at once, from one dye lot, the batch the thread was dyed in: dye lots differ.

How to tell them apart

A trammed canvas, a preworked canvas and a blank one are plain at a glance. The hard case is printed against painted: the two can look alike. Many sellers state which a canvas is, and if a listing does not, ask. On the canvas itself:

• A strip of color blocks printed along the edge is a sign of a printed canvas.
• One clear color on every intersection means a stitch-painted canvas, or a printed canvas made to match one.
• Colors that cross intersections are found on a freely painted canvas and on a print that has slipped, so they do not settle it.
• The weave is only a hint: many printed kits are on interlock canvas, and almost all hand-painted designs are on mono canvas.

Which suits a beginner

• A printed kit has everything in one package, and it is a way to find out whether you enjoy needlepoint. Choose one that is printed straight.
• A stitch-painted canvas leaves no color in doubt. Ask for it kitted to have the threads chosen for you.
• A chart and blank canvas ask for counting. How to needlepoint suggests what to stitch first, and there are charts to count among the geometric and bargello patterns.
• A freely painted or heavily shaded canvas is better left until later.

For a first piece, choose a simple design in few colors on 13 mesh. Its holes are bigger than those of 18 mesh and easier on the eyes.