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How far can you go with long stitch?

How Far Can You Go With a Long Stitch?

Long Stitch is a stitch over more than one intersection (hole). It’s companion is the Short Stitch, which is over one hole.

Similar to Continental, but not on the diagonal. It is done by following the direction of an area of your canvas.

Image on the right was stitched with long stitch in every area of the canvas with smashing success!

There are many canvases on our site where long stitch can work wonders.

Reflections by Kathleen West on the left is a good example that might not seem obvious.

Try long stitch for the trees
and the wavy lines in the water.

Thin or wider stems are another way to use long stitch.

The Patchwork Geese at top of the email can be done with a combination of short and long stitches for the feathers.

Let us help you find a canvas to work with short and long stitches

Happy Stitching!

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What’s Being Called 5 Best Needlepoint Kits for Beginners

What’s Being Called 5 Best Needlepoint Kits for Beginners

Needlepoint is a craft that has been done by people all over the world for centuries. The art of creating works of art using only a needle, colored yarn, and a canvas. The fascinating part of needlepoint is that you don’t have to be an advanced needle pointer to create great-looking art. Thanks to kit makers, they create needlepoint kits and you can be making your works of art. In no time you make things worthy of hanging on your wall or covering your throw pillows in your family home. 

5 Top Needlepoint kits for beginners

Thankfully, there are websites like ArtneedlePoint.com that offer hundreds of projects from the beginner to the most advanced crafters. For this article, we picked 5 examples of beginner kits that are available. Each kit is unique and offers the buyer what is necessary to complete the project from start to finish. 

319 Abstract Pillow by Jane Parkes – This needlepoint kit comes with everything that you will need to get started and to complete the project. This includes a 14 mesh mono canvas that measures 9” x14”. You have a choice of the thread type between wool, silk, or pearl cotton in multiple colors. It also can be purchased in several other sizes including large seat cushions, and rugs. 

A Day at Sea by Jennifer Holbrook – If you are looking to create a nice wall hanging for a child’s room, this would be a great choice. It comes with everything you need and it even allows you to customize your selection. It comes in three different canvases; 14, 16, or 18 mesh (thread count). You can also select your own thread type as well; silk, wool, or pearl cotton. It features an 11” x 14” mono deluxe needlepoint canvas. 

255 Abstract Me Cushion Kit by Jane Parkes – This 18” X 18” kit includes everything that you need to create an interesting wall hanging, large pillow covering, or seat cushion. It includes the 14 mesh mono deluxe needlepoint canvas and all of the necessary colored thread to complete the project. You can even select the type of thread that you prefer to use; wool, silk, or pearl cotton. 

Appetizer Kit by Jim Stratton – Are you looking for a unique wall hanging for a den or man cave, check out this beginners project. It includes all the necessary materials needed to get started and complete the project. Choose between wool or pearl cotton thread types that are all included. It features a 13” x 16” 14 mesh mono needlepoint canvas. It can be ordered in different sizes and you can call for pricing. 

4 Canvas Set of Tis the Season by Tourtilloutte – Are you possibly looking for a seasonal project for the Christmas holiday. Then check out this project which is designed for all skill levels from novice to advanced. It is separated into four different 4” x 4” canvases or it can be put all together for larger wall hanging. Your choice of 14, 16, or 18 mesh mono deluxe needlepoint screen. It comes with all of the thread you will need to complete the project in your choice of thread types; pearl cotton, wool, or silk. 

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Why Use Silk Threads on Needlepoint Canvases

Why Use Silk Threads on Needlepoint Canvases

Why Use Silk Threads on Needlepoint Canvases

While the first textiles were probably made from intertwined stems and grass or animal hairs, very little has been excavated from tombs or monuments throughout the world that remains intact.  In various found fragment  from between 5000 BC & 500 AD contain crude stitches with silk threads.

By the 4th-10th century, silk & gold threads were staples of early needlework. An Egyptian fragment ca 4th-7th ce was discovered with silk threads in brown woven cloth. The vestments of  two sisters, St. Harlindes & St. Relindis, who each became an abbess, were the earliest surviving examples  of Anglo-Saxon handwork that we have today, stitched in silk on linen.  

Checking Silk above is a 12th century painting depicting women checking on silk that will be made into cloth.

Durability and ease of use are the major factors for our love of silk threads. Why use anything else when you want it to last!

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Stitching a Needlepoint Canvas. When Threads and Stitches Do the Heavy Lifting

When stitching a needlepoint canvas you get results in a couple of a ways.

Sometimes threads do the trick, or a mix of threads with different densities.
Sometimes stitches do the heavy lifting.

Often you will have a canvas that has details going in different directions such as in the Sunday Hats to the right, or Fox in Birch Trees by Two Can Art below.

You can stitch with continental or basketweave or change some areas to stitches that provide some visual interest and work with the direction better – the sky goes across and the trees up and down. There are lots of stitches and you only need think of one area and a great choice for that area.  

Today we will showcase stitches that can be used in almost any area and a couple that provide a great result for specific details. Any of these stitches can be found in a google search by the name of the stitch and shown in videos of how to do them. We also have them diagramed in pdf format that can be emailed.

Heringbone

GREAT FOR:  Backgrounds, Animals (best for one color), Clothes, Foliage, Birds, Buildings
This stitch creates movement – paths, skies, snow expanse come to mind

Cashmere

Cashmere is a universal stitch.  Think of the Cashmere unit as a group of 1 continetal, 2 long stitches over 2 intersections and then another Continental.  By using this train of thought, you can work the stitch either horizontally or vertically.   No matter which way you stitch Cashmere, the end result will be the same. 

Split Stitch

Have a thin tree trunk such as the fox laptop image above or other up and down lines?  Perfect. Consider blending two colors with this stitch for trunks that aren’t solid such as the fox in snow above or change the color as you go.

Fish Bone Stitch

While we are looking for small stitches that create great texture and are easy to do. let’s talk about the Fish Bone.  A wonderful fill for certain areas that you might want to use satin stitch for but it handles curves much better. It is also a great stitch for shading. Commonly used for leaves and feathers, but can be applied to many details.

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Botanical Needlepoint Kits inspired by Mary Delany

Stitching Gorgeous Botanical Needlepoint Kits by Mary Delany

Mary Granville Delany bloomed in her 70s, when she embarked on her life’s work — creating 985 life-size botanical masterpieces inventing a form of paper-cutting or decoupage, which she called her “paper mosaiks” now held by the British Museum.

“I have invented a new way of imitating flowers,” she said. And so her life work began, at age 72. Delany began work on her celebrated Flora Delanica – not a herbarium of dried plants but a florilegium of images of flowers made of tiny pieces of colored cut paper.

Using tissue and papers of all hues and shades, she cut the wafer-thin tissue without any drawings or apparent planning. She pasted the cut-outs of the intricate parts of the flowers collage-fashion onto black paper to create perfect reproductions of living plants. 

Amazingly, these pictures are actually paper mosaics. They are not paintings.

Gardeners and amateur botanists from miles around sent her flowers so she could record their achievements for posterity. Exquisitely beautiful, Delany’s work was also valued for its scientific accuracy.

Mary’s flower collages caught the interest of two neighboring amateur botanists —King George III and his wife, Queen Charlotte- who became her patrons.

They gave her a cottage at Windsor where she lived out her last three years, surrounded by her great-niece Georgina,age 17 (whom she’d raised) and many of the King and Queen’s thirteen children, to whom she taught botany.

We have exclusive access for needlepoint to most of her collection.

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Floral Art Needlepoint by Marie Sibille Merian

Stitching is Blooming
Needlepoint by Marie Sibille Merian

Mary Granville Delany bloomed in her 70s, when she embarked on her life’s work — creating 985 life-size botanical masterpieces inventing a form of paper-cutting or decoupage, which she called her “paper mosaiks” now held by the British Museum.

Stitching is Blooming

Whether Up Close Flowers as above, a bouquet or field of flowers, who doesn’t love flowers!

Today, we introduce two female artists who were pioneers and began their life work late in their life who bring out the extraordinary beauty of flora from near and far.

Some of each of their expansive oeuvre graces this page

Maria Sibylla Merian, age 52, in 1699, more than a century before Charles Darwin explored the Galapagos, she set sail for a projected 5 year expedition to Suriname, the northern coast of South America.

The voyage afforded Merian a unique opportunity to explore new species of insects and plants. She changed how the human world understood the insect world. Her floral paintings were exact and most often included insects such as the one here.

Her exacting art also changed the world view of flora and fauna

150 years after Merian’s death, scientist Ernst Haeckel coined the term “ecology” for the study of relationships among organisms and their environment throughout their life cycles.

Today, Maria Sibylla Merian would be most proud that many scholars consider her the world’s first ecologist.