Needlepoint guide
Needlepoint tools and supplies
To start needlepoint you need a canvas, thread, a tapestry needle and a pair of small sharp scissors. Everything else makes stitching easier or neater, and can wait until you know you want it.
On this page 10 parts
What you need on day one
The list for day one is short: a canvas, thread, a tapestry needle and small extra-sharp scissors. A bag holds it all and keeps the canvas and thread protected. A needle threader, stretcher bars, a laying tool and a needle minder are optional.
Needles
Needlepoint uses tapestry needles, which have blunt tips that pass through the holes of the canvas without piercing its threads. The bigger the number, the finer the needle. Size 20 suits 12 to 14 mesh canvas and size 22 suits 16 to 18 mesh. The needle size guide has the full table and a way to test the fit.
- The size is a starting point. A finer needle, the next size up in number, can be easier on your hands: a 24 in place of a 22 on 18 mesh, for example. A thicker one, the next size down in number (a 20), is easier on the thread. Test the fit of either, as the needle size guide describes, before you stitch with it, and go back to the size given above if it fails.
- A needle's eye is pressed into the wire, so it is slightly larger on one side than the other. If the thread will not go in, turn the needle over.
Needles wear out. Replace a needle when its eye is bent, its finish has worn off or its shaft is bent.
Scissors
You need one small pair with sharp, pointed tips, so you can clip a thread in a tight space.
Keep them for thread. Paper and card ruin a sharp blade, and cutting fabric dulls a delicate one too, so cut canvas with a sturdier pair. Metal and metallic threads want a pair of their own, and an old, dull pair can be kept just for those.
A sheath over the tips protects the points, your project and the bag. Keep the scissors sheathed inside the bag.
If you fly with your stitching, check what you are allowed to carry before you pack your scissors.
A frame
A frame is optional, and worth adding early. See frames and stretcher bars for the kinds and how to mount a canvas.
A laying tool
A laying tool is a smooth stick, pointed or blunt, held in the hand that is not stitching. It is for stitching with several strands in the needle, or with ribbon and other flat threads. Its job is to make the strands lie flat and side by side instead of twisting over one another.
To use one:
- Bring the needle up through the canvas and pull the thread straight up after it.
- Hold the thread down against the canvas with the tool, in your other hand, close to where the thread comes up.
- Leave the tool on the thread. Put the needle into the hole that finishes the stitch and pull through, stroking the strands flat with the tool as the loop closes over it.
- Slide the tool out only at the very end.
It takes two hands, so neither is free to hold the canvas, and the frame must stay still. Mount the canvas on stretcher bars or a scroll frame and put it on a stand, or rest the frame on the edge of a table and hold it down with clamps, books or a frame weight.
You do not have to buy one to try it. A large tapestry needle will do the same job.
Needle minders and magnets
A needle minder is a pair of magnets. The decorated one sits on the front of the canvas and the plain one behind it holds it there. Park your threaded needle on it when you put the work down. Avoid one made with black craft magnets, which can leave residue on fabric.
There is no single correct spot for it. Put it where it is easy to reach and out of the way of your stitching, such as near the edge of the working area or on an open part of the canvas, and move it as the work grows.
It is not essential. Without one, park the needle at the side of the canvas, in the bare margin, and never in the stitched area. A needle parked in the stitched area can distort the canvas and leave a bump that may be permanent.
If you buy one, the magnet matters more than the decoration: a weak one drops the needle when the frame is bumped. On a frame that stays on a stand, a strong magnet will also hold small scissors.
A needle threader
A threader pulls the thread through the eye for you. With the hook type, you push the hook through the eye, catch the thread and pull it back.
You can also thread without one. Fold about an inch (2.5 cm) of one end of the thread over the needle and pinch the fold tight. Slide the needle out, press the eye down over the fold, then pull the loop through until the short end comes free. That leaves a single thread in the eye, not a doubled one.
Light and magnification
A good light and a magnifier are worth having: even with good eyesight there are lighting conditions that need both.
- Light. Whatever the kind of bulb, the light needs to be bright. Incandescent bulbs generally give a yellowish light and daylight bulbs a bluish one, and a thread's color looks different under each. As a rule of thumb the light should come from just behind your left shoulder if you are right-handed, and from behind the right if you are left-handed. If your hand throws a shadow on the work, move the light.
- Magnifiers come on table and floor stands, as special glasses and as lenses that clip to your own glasses. Some have a light built in. Try before you buy if you can.
- A plain cloth helps too. A white cloth on your lap behind a dark canvas, or a dark one behind a light canvas, makes the holes easier to see.
Pens for marking canvas
Be wary of the marking pens sold in fabric stores for sewing: some that claim to disappear with water or heat do not disappear completely or for good. Many markers bleed when wet, and even a piece that is never blocked may one day need cleaning. Never use a ballpoint pen. Pencil smudges: the graphite may come off on the thread, and pale thread can look dirty over the mark. Always test any other marker before you use it.
Make the test on a scrap of the same canvas, not on the piece. A marker can hold on one canvas and run on another, so a test counts only for the piece of canvas the scrap came from. Some canvas does not take the ink: it sits on the surface and sometimes rubs off on the thread as it is pulled through. Scribble on the scrap with the marker, let the ink dry for 10 to 15 minutes, wet the scrap thoroughly under cold running water, then lay it on a white paper towel and blot it hard with another. If any color shows on the towels, do not use that marker on that canvas. If none shows, the marker can be used on that canvas. A basting thread marks canvas with no ink at all. With no scrap from that same canvas there is nothing to test on: mark without a pen, as the end of this section says.
Pull a basting thread out just before the stitching reaches it, and clean the spot with sticky tape so that no fuzz is stitched in. How to read a chart says how to baste a line of thread as a mark and how to mark the center of a canvas with no pen at all.
What can wait
Add a laying tool when you first stitch with several strands or with ribbon. A needle minder and a threader are comforts: get them when you notice you want them.
For choosing thread, see the thread guide. For the first stitches, see how to needlepoint.