Official blog of www.NeedlePaint.com
where you can design your own Needlepoint!

NeedlePoint Kits and Canvas Designs | Design your own Needlepoint Kit!

Peggy’s at it again, already planning for this Christmas.  You’ll see some new modern needlepoint designs coming soon, but this mosaic personalized needlepoint stocking is a good twist on some of our existing traditional designs.

There are complimentary stockings and needlepoint ornaments to this, to see all of our needlepoint canvases, visit our personalized needlepoint kits shop.

Mosaic Needlepoint Stocking Canvas Photo

To buy and personalize this Christmas stocking canvas in our shop, click here.

We made a new needlepoint kit for a friend, and I just have to share it.

Our friend is a photographer and shared this picture of his dog, and look at how well the dog needlepoint canvas came out!

Using photos for needlepoint is easy, if you want to create a custom needlepoint kit, go to our website, NeedlePaint.com and try it out.  If you want help, email us at info (at) needlepaint.com or check out our needlepoint design help blog.

Beautiful Dog Needlepoint Kit

We made a new needlepoint design last week, again for a belt.  It seems our recent blog on needlepoint belts has really drawn some interest in more custom designed belt needlepoint canvases.

The project was pretty simple, the customer wanted to stitch a monogram belt for her husband.  When we spoke, she mentioned that they have two kids and recently moved to Florida.  I got the idea to add two palms to represent the kids and sent her the preview, she loves it!  The canvas came out really well, see below…

The Palm Coast Belt Needlepoint Canvas

It has been HOT in Denver, real hot, so hot I think we broke almost every record…  So dog gawn hot!  Our pooches have been enduring in the work shop with lots of cool water, and sleeping.

Well, that is not really what this post is about.  I just had to share the lovely dog needlepoint canvases we made this week!  The dog needlepoint kits were all made from photos, so why not try to stitch your own dog?

Dog Days of Summer – This weeks orders

This custom needlepoint kit project came in last week, and is being flown half way around the world!  The customer contacted us to see if we can do our stitch counted needlepoint process from a photo of artwork from a museum in Paris.

Lucky for us, we have just started experimenting with penelope canvas (sometimes known as double mesh) and found that while not as good as mono, it does come out pretty well.  See the attached images!

Double Mesh Needlepoint Kit Close Up

Double Mesh Needlepoint Kit

The issue to be aware of with the stitch counted needlepoint on penelope canvas is that we can’t single out the petit point stitches.  But, this was OK for our past few customers as they just prefer to work on penelope canvas and said they will add small details if they think it is needed.

We picked a winner for our free needlepoint canvas contest back on June 6th.  We finished the canvas last week, and we wanted to show what great ideas for needlepoint designs can be made using NeedlePaint.com!

Needlepoint kits can be made from photos, royalty free artwork, or designed using your favorite computer programs. If you have an idea and want help, just call or email us, and we’ll get started.  You don’t pay until after the design and price have been approved!

The Winner’s Custom Needlepoint Canvas

Another view fo the Needlepoint Canvas with the Stitch Guides

We love making custom needlepoint kits here, and a few weeks ago, we had a fun summer needlepoint design come up.

The customer wants to make a needlepoint belt for her husband, and after seeing what was available, she really wanted to stitch something special and personal.

She emailed us a bunch of her husband’s favorite golf clubs and we took it from there.  Take a look at how well her custom needlepoint canvas turned out!

Belt canvases run around $50.00 and if you want us to do the design there may be an additional $15.00 design fee.

Close up of the NeedlePoint Belt Canvas

Entire needlepoint best with monogram and repeating pattern

We made this coat of arms custom needlepoint kit a few weeks back and it came out great!  The customer really loves it, and was looking forward to getting started on the project.

Coat of Arms are one of the most popular needlepoint designs we make.  Since most of NeedlePaint’s orders are for custom needlepoint kits, we really excel on projects like this.

If you have a coat of arms you would like to stitch (it can be from a family or a university you attended), you can mail or email us the picture and we’d be happy to make a preview for you.  And, if you want our help looking up a coat of arms, we are here and happy to assist!  Also, if you find the website is not getting the design and colors to look as well as good as you would like, just email us and we will fix it up!

Coat of Arms Needlepoint Kit

One of our customers wrote us recently, and was asking if we had any recommendations on good stitches to use on her dog needlepoint kit.

Luckily Peggy has some good ideas, and even created her own stitch which you can see below.  This is her reply, and as usual, her reference pages are from The Needlepoint Book by Jo Ippolito Christensen.  I thought that since we make so many dog and cat needlepoint kits, that this post would be a good one to share!

From Peggy:

Rabbit is done in Mosaic Checker (pg 215) form The Needlepoint Book. Additionally, the haunches are done with two different colors of thread which are very close in color. The Mosaic Checker in the book is shown with 2 contracting colors.

Greek stitch (p 270) in the Needlepoint Book works very nicely as well. I have done one part horizontal and the other vertical which would work well for different parts of the dogs body. Also you can do it diagonally for another variation. This is shown on p 270. And, two different tone of thread could be used here.

And, finally a 2 tone padded cross stitch. This is one that I came up with and a diagram is attached.

Needlepoint Rabbit with Textured Stitches

Greek Stitch

Padded Cross Stitch

Padded Cross Stitch Diagram

One of our projects last week was based on a Iznik tile.  The needlepoint pattern came out great on the canvas!

Iznik Needlepoint Pattern

The pattern is so beautiful, it got me looking for more Iznik tiles that would make beautiful patterns for needlepoint and needlepoint canvases.

Here are a few of my favorites!

The history of Iznik pottery is quite interesting.  Originally from Turkey, there are many examples in museums and palace walls.  Wikipedia has a good amount of information online on the subject, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iznik_pottery but the most fun way to browse these amazing patterns is to go to: http://images.google.com and type in “Iznik Tiles”.  Enjoy!