What is preworked needlepoint?

What a preworked canvas is

The stitched motif may be flowers, fruit, birds, animals or musical instruments. The background was left bare on purpose, so that the buyer could work it in a color to suit the room. The name is also written pre-worked, and the motif is also called a pre-stitched or preworked center. Painted, printed and charted canvases describes the other forms in which a design is sold.

To finish one, work the background in tent stitch, continental for most pieces, in tapestry wool or Persian wool thick enough to hide the canvas. Buy all the wool at once, and start right beside the motif. If the canvas was handed down or bought secondhand, read "Old preworked canvases" at the end of this page first.

The canvas and its two sizes of stitch

Nearly all preworked canvases sold today are on Penelope canvas, the double-thread canvas. Its threads are woven in pairs, which leaves large holes between one pair and the next and small gaps between the two threads of a pair.

The place where canvas threads cross is called an intersection. A large stitch runs on a slant from one large hole to the next, over the place where two pairs cross: four threads in all. Push the pairs apart and that one place becomes four small intersections, each a single thread crossing a single thread. A small stitch covers one of them, so four small stitches fit in the space of one large stitch. Large stitches are also called gros point, and small ones petit point.

Small stitches give detail and large ones cover a plain background faster, so a motif is often worked at least partly in small stitches and the background left for large ones.

A large stitch needs its whole space: all four of the small intersections inside it must be empty. Along the edge of a motif worked in small stitches, the motif has often taken one, two or three of the four. Fill the rest with small compensating stitches in the background color. They are the only small stitches left for you to make, and many preworked canvases have none.

The most common size is written 10/20: 10 large holes to the inch, which gives 10 large stitches, or 20 small ones with the pairs pushed apart. The number of holes to the inch is the mesh. Other sizes exist, such as the finer 12/24. To check yours, lay a ruler on bare canvas and count the large holes along one inch (2.5 cm).

The rest of this page also serves for any canvas on which the design is done and only the background is left. Mono canvas, which is woven of single threads, has holes of one size, so it needs no small stitches around the design.

Which stitch for the background

Work the background in tent stitch: one slanted stitch over one intersection, every one slanting from lower left to upper right. Before your first stitch, hold the canvas so that the stitches of the motif slant up to the right. Then, for a large stitch, bring the needle up through a large hole and take it down through the next large hole on the diagonal, up and to the right. How to needlepoint shows the stitch.

Tent stitch can be worked in three ways, which look the same from the front and differ on the back: continental and half cross in straight rows, basketweave in diagonal rows. For this background:

• Continental is the one to choose. It and half cross are the two forms usual on Penelope canvas, and continental wears the better, so of the two it is the one for a pillow or a seat. It tends to pull the canvas out of square. Blocking, which is dampening the canvas and pinning it out square, pulls it back.
• Basketweave is the hardest-wearing of the three and the least likely to pull the canvas out of square, and on other canvas it is the stitch for any large area. Over the pairs of Penelope canvas its rows are the hardest to keep in order. Choose it only if you can keep them, as described below.
• Half cross uses the least thread and wears the least well. Keep it for a piece that will be framed, even where the motif itself is in half cross. Half cross lies flatter than continental, so a continental background may stand a little fuller than such a motif.

Do not mix half cross with either of the others in the background: the surface comes out uneven. Continental and basketweave can be used together, continental where a space is too narrow for a diagonal row. Basketweave vs continental compares all three.

If you choose basketweave. Its diagonal rows go up and down by turns, and two rows side by side worked in the same direction leave a line on the front that blocking will not take out. On mono canvas the weave shows which way the next row goes. Over the pairs of Penelope canvas it does not, so note the direction whenever you put the work down. If you lose your place, turn the canvas over: each row leaves stitches on the back that are either vertical or horizontal, and the two kinds alternate. Look at the last row and work the next one the other way.

For a textured background instead of tent stitch, which stitch to use lists decorative stitches. A stitch that looks small on finer canvas comes out bold over the pairs of a 10/20 canvas.

Thread for the background

You do not have to find the thread the motif was stitched in: every stitch left to make is in the background color. What has to be right is the thickness of the thread and how its color looks beside the motif.

Which wool. Before you buy, look around the edge of the motif to see whether it has left small stitches to make. On a 10/20 canvas:

Tapestry wool is a single thick strand that is not divided, too thick for the small stitches. Persian wool is three strands that pull apart, so one skein does both sizes of stitch in the same color. The thread guide gives the strands for other threads and other meshes, and needle sizes has the needles.

Thickness. The thread has to hide the canvas, and some makes of tapestry wool run thin for 10 stitches to the inch, so test before you buy the full amount. Buy one skein, which is the loosely wound length that thread is sold in. Work a patch of large stitches, five by five, in the margin, the bare canvas at the edge: put it near the cut edge, well away from where the background will end. If canvas shows between the stitches, the thread is too thin. If it pushes the canvas threads out of line, it is too thick.

Fiber. Wool is the traditional choice and a hard-wearing one, so use it for anything that has to stand up to use. Cotton and silk can be used on this canvas too. A matte cotton made for canvas work, sold as soft cotton, suits a piece that will be framed.

Color. Lay the thread against the motif and look at the two together by daylight and again under a lamp. Some neutral background colors that look good by day blend into the greens of a design by candlelight.

For a chair seat or a bench

• The size. Before you stitch, ask the upholsterer who will fit the seat what size and shape to stitch. The needlepoint has to cover the seat and turn under its edge, and every seat differs. A needlepoint shop can say who fits needlepoint.
• The wear. A seat takes the hardest wear, so stitch it in wool, in continental or basketweave, never in half cross.
• The fitting. Leave it to an upholsterer who has fitted needlepoint before. The finished piece is pulled over the seat and fastened underneath, and the spare canvas at the corners is cut away, which cannot be undone.

How much thread to buy

First settle how far the background has to run: the size you want the finished pillow or picture to be, or the size the upholsterer gave for a seat. If a finisher, the person who makes a stitched canvas up into a pillow or another finished thing, will make yours up, ask before you stitch the edge whether they want extra rows of background to turn under. How to finish a pillow says what rows a pillow sewn at home uses.

The edge of the background follows a row of holes, so find it by counting large holes out from the motif, 10 to the inch on a 10/20 canvas. The same count on opposite sides puts the motif in the middle. Leave at least 2 inches (5 cm) of bare canvas beyond the stitching on every side, for the frame you stitch on, for blocking and for making the piece up.

Then measure in inches:

1. Multiply the width of the whole area by its height. A pillow 16 by 16 inches (41 by 41 cm) is 256 square inches.
2. Do the same for the motif. A motif 8 by 8 inches (20 by 20 cm) is 64 square inches.
3. Take the second figure from the first. That leaves 192 square inches of background.
4. Divide the background by the whole and multiply by 100. 192 divided by 256 is 0.75, so 75 percent of the area is background.

For a motif of irregular shape, rule a clear plastic sheet in 1 inch (2.5 cm) squares and lay it over the motif with the ruled side up, so that no ink touches the stitches. Count each square that the motif fills by half or more. The count is the area of the motif in square inches.

The thread calculator turns this into yards. Enter the width and height of the whole area, the mesh of the large stitches (10 for a 10/20 canvas), the stitch, and the percent of the area that is background. For the example on a 10/20 canvas, its estimate is 237 yards (217 m) in continental or basketweave and 168 yards (153 m) in half cross. Type in the length printed on the label of one skein and it gives the number of skeins.

Buy all of it at once, all with the same dye lot number. A later lot may not match.

Where to start

Mount the canvas on a frame if you can. A frame helps keep the canvas from being pulled out of square, and a taut canvas makes the pairs easier to push apart. Frames and stretcher bars says which kind suits which piece.

Small stitches first. Make any small stitches around the edge of the motif before the large ones. A small stitch is the same tent stitch, slanting the same way, over one small intersection.

To open the canvas for them, push the point of the needle through the middle of an intersection of pairs, where the four threads meet. The needle goes between the canvas threads, never through one. Do this at every intersection in a patch about an inch (2.5 cm) across, and go a little beyond the stitches you need, because the canvas tends to close up again. Then nudge the threads until the small holes are about the same size.

Then the large stitches. Make the first ones right beside the motif, and begin each new thread beside the motif or beside background already worked. The stitches already there show which pairs belong together, and on this canvas it is easy to take a stitch over the wrong four threads. The page for your stitch, linked above, shows how a row begins and which way it runs.

Fastening the thread. Begin the first thread with a waste knot, and fasten later ones under two or three background stitches on the back. Run the tail horizontally or vertically, never along a diagonal row, where it shows on the front. Starting and ending a thread shows both.

As you go:

• Make each row as long as the space allows.
• Where the motif interrupts a row by a single stitch, pass behind it and continue. Where a larger tongue of the motif juts into the background, stop there and work the far side with a separate length of thread.
• Fill the last small gaps with separate lengths of thread as well.
• Do not let thread pile up on the back, and work around any thick lump of thread behind the motif without laying more across it. A pile on the back shows as a bump on the front of the finished piece.

When the background is done

Blocking uses water, and water can make some dyes run. You did not choose the threads of the motif, so on a canvas bought new, test first: a drop of water on each color, pressed with white blotting paper or a white cloth. Make the test on the back of the canvas, on every color in the motif as well as your own thread. The test can mark the spot, which is why it goes on the back, and a clean result is no promise that nothing will run. The blocking guide gives it in full.

If any dye comes off on the white, do not wet the piece: ask a finisher. If a finisher will make the piece up, ask before you block it in any case. Finishing explains that work.

Do not test or block an old canvas at home: see "Old preworked canvases" below.

Is the worked part wool or cotton?

It matters little. Fibers can be mixed in one piece, so the background does not have to be the fiber of the motif. A label, a wrapper or the seller's description may say which the motif is. If nothing does, treat it as wool, which moths damage. Old needlepoint says how to store a piece and what to do about insects.

Eye and hand give a first idea and no more. Wool is a soft fiber, and a wool yarn is often a little fuzzy. The matte cotton made for canvas work is smooth, without fuzz, and has less stretch than wool. Once stitched, the two are hard to tell apart.

What can settle it is a fiber under a microscope, or a laboratory test. Both need a fiber taken from the piece, so do not pull or cut threads from the motif to find out: ask a textile conservator.

Old preworked canvases

Preworked canvases were much sold in the middle of the 20th century, often for chair seats, and many were made on the Portuguese island of Madeira. Such a canvas was bought with a floral center already stitched, and with tapestry wool for the background. A canvas handed down with a stitched bouquet in the middle and bare canvas around it may be a preworked canvas of this kind.

Treat as old any canvas that was handed down or bought secondhand, or whose age you do not know. Before you finish one:

• The condition. Whether an old canvas is still strong enough to stitch and to use is a judgment for someone with the canvas in hand: show it to a textile conservator or a needlepoint shop first. Mold, insect damage, powdering threads, stains, splits and tears are work for a conservator, because a wrong attempt to deal with them can do further damage.
• Water. Do not dampen or block an old canvas on your own judgment, and do not test its dyes yourself. Ask a textile conservator before it is dampened, blocked, cut or made up into anything.
• The wool. If wool for the background came with the canvas, measure and estimate as above before you begin. It may not be enough, and an old wool is very unlikely to be found again.
• The care. Old needlepoint covers handling, storing, insects and cleaning, what can and cannot be said about age, and who can say what a piece is worth.