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

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

Posts tagged ‘custom needlepoint canvases’

Baseball Player Needlepoint Kits

Zainab Al-Chalabi recently created this beautiful needlepoint kit of a Evan Longoria.  Her exquisite stitching and framing capture a great memory in Florida baseball.

Evan Longoria in Needlepoint

A few things I want to mention.  #1.  The picture is cropped very close so the details of the face and body show up really well.  #2.  The colors on the face had very good lighting.  This can be adjusted, if you are uploading a portrait to make a needlepoint canvas and having trouble, feel free to email us and we will adjust the colors on your image in Photoshop.

Currently, we are working on a portrait of a customers grandchild that is a portrait from their sports team.  It looks like another fantastic project!

Lovely Needlepoint Pillows

These two lovely needlepoint pillows were emailed to by Hala Alfi last week.  The pillows are very well stitched and they are a great way to display your talent!

Marine Crest Needlepoint Pillow

Marine Crest Needlepoint Pillow

Cute Dog Needlepoint Pillow

Cute Dog Needlepoint Pillow

The Four Hour Needlepoint Ornament

With less than a month to do to Christmas, I was getting challenged to finish my goal of 9 personalized needlepoint ornaments. I needed to cut dramatically the time it took to needlepoint the ornaments. Could I do one in 4 hours?

Looking at the needlepoint design choices, I selected the Snowflake Design — not too complex and only 3 colors, but there is a lot of background. If I were to meet my 4-hour goal, I had to come up with something even quicker than the open work I did on Santa in his sleigh .

To the drawing board — the custom needlepoint canvas has a rich dark green background so why cover it up? Add red running stitches in alternating columns of over 3 rows and under one. It looked great and added a new dimensions to the otherwise plain background.

And, canvas on stretcher, I headed off to my flight from Denver to Boston — 3.5 hours. When I landed in Boston, I had finished all but 2 square inches of the background. It only took me another 15 minutes to finish up when I got time at my destination and then another 20 minutes to sew it onto the green fabric stuff it and tie it up. Success!!!

As you can see, I used the same technique on the blue snowflake ornament with light blue on the dark blue background.

Thanksgiving is not here and I am done with the ornament!!

NeedlePaint October Newsletter

We just sent out our October needlepoint newsletter.  A lot of fun custom needlepoint projects!

Please note, if you would like to subscribe to our newsletter, you can email us with your name and email address, and we will add your name to the list.  Or click here, and select the Subscribe option.

If you would like to view the live version of the newsletter with links that actually work, click here.

How to Design a Photo Needlepoint Stocking

You can now stitch a great photo needlepoint stocking very easily.  As part of our new personalized needlepoint shop, we added some stocking designs that have an area where your favorite photo can be added.

To view personalized needlepoint christmas stocking designs that you can add your photo to, just go to our personalized needlepoint shop.  All you have to do is type in your name and place the order and then email us the photo you would like to include.

We will email you back a preview of your design for your approval.  We won’t ship any personalized orders until we have approval, and all orders are 100% satisfaction guaranteed.  See our post on customer satisfaction to learn more!

Add your own Name and Photo to this Needlepoint Stocking Canvas

Customer Service and Needlepoint Design service

The last few months have been going very well at NeedlePaint.com.  As you may guess, creating custom needlepoint kits is not always a perfect process, but we always do our best to get it right the first time.

A few things you may not be aware of that we do.

#1.  We love to help before you place your order!  If the photo needlepoint preview does not look as good as your want or you want help cropping it, please email us the photo and we will work on it and help you with your project.  Also, we develop designs from scratch and are happy to discuss ideas for a new project.

#2.  We review your order to be sure there are no major errors and that it looks like something we would want to stitch.  You will get an email asking for the photo if we think colors may not look right, or that the canvas needs to be improved.

#3.  Sometimes colors on the computer look good, but when we proceed with the order, the colors we find are totally off!  On animals and people we try to color match the floss by hand as computers don’t recognize dog breeds or skin tones.  Most often, we’ll get purple and green tones, but alas, we will fix them!

#4.  If you are not happy with your project, we will fix the design and replace the canvas!  These projects take a lot of time and the needlepoint will probably be with your family for a very long time, sometimes generations, so we encourage all of our customers to speak up if they have any problems with an order.

The feedback we’ve been getting is really nice, and lets us know that going the extra mile is worth it!

“Thank you for the update.  I am really impressed with your customer service.  A+ with the proactive approach—it is refreshing.”  Nancy, from AZ

“I am very excited about this…and THANK YOU so much again for you help & patience with getting this perfect!! It really means a lot!!”  Erica, from NJ

“Got it today and it looks great. Thank you!”  Holly, from NJ

“I received my shipment yesterday and the canvas is just beautiful!!!!”  Deb, from MN

This week's orders

NeedlePoint Dog Canvases

One of our favorite projects we see almost every week is the dogs.  Two weeks ago, we actually had 5 dog needlepoint canvas orders, along with two cat needlepoint canvases.

Some of the dogs are below.  You can see that the close up images look great.  Also, we’ve been working on finding more dog breeds to add to our Etsy shop.  You can browse more dog needlepoint canvases there, or upload your own needlepoint photo to create a custom needlepoint kit at our website!

Personalized Needlepoint Christmas Stocking Shop

Today NeedlePaint.com announced today that we have launched a new personalized needlepoint shop!  In this shop there are many pre-designed Christmas needlepoint canvases to which customers can add their own names and also have the shop modify the colors before printing.  Some of the designs even allow for the customer to add their own photos into the canvas design!

We have already posted about a few of these projects in our blog, but now we have made it easy to order them at the NeedlePaint.com personalized needlepoint shop!

New Designs for Personalized Needlepoint Stockings and Ornaments

This month we are featuring Christmas stockings and needlepoint ornament designs. In the past, personalized needlepoint stocking kits have required the stitcher to actually use a stencil and draw in a name, with very plain letters. Customers buying from NeedlePaint.com have their choice of over 100 styles of letters and 400 colors.  Customers will also be happy to know that their names will be printed onto the canvas, and that the needlepoint kits will include not only the canvas and thread, but they will also come with a counted stitch guide, counted color aid, and DMC matched color guide.

Our blogs explain how to make these so follow the links below:

Needlepoint Christmas Ornaments Using Quick Stitches

How to make Needlepoint Christmas Ornaments

Personalized Needelpoint Chrismas Stocking

Needlepoint Christmas Ornaments Using Quick Stitches

With December rapidly approaching, I realized that I was going to have to speed up if my goal of 12 personalized needlepoint ornaments for Christmas gifts was to be met. I have now completed 5 and my needle is flying.

The key to speed – quick backgrounds!  Three fast background stitches came from The Needlepoint Book by Joe Ippolito Christensen.

On the Penguin Needlepoint Ornament, I used a variation on the Four-way Bargello for the sky, and n0t so quick was the diagonal mosaic for the ice bergs and snow. Still faster than the traditional continental stitch!


The background for the angel ornament is  the Victorian Step which was even quicker.

But, the ultimate speed came with the open work on the Santa ornament. This is a modification of the Four-Sided Over Three stitch from A Pageant of Pattern for Needlepoint Canvas by Sherlee Lantz. It does not cover the canvas but lets the printed background show through.

                                      Four-Sided Over Three Stitch

I also came up with some other ideas to dress them up quickly:

  • Beads for stars or snowflakes on Santa and the Penguins.
  • Beads on the Angels dress.
  • Jingle bells hanging from the Penguins bottom ties (not shown in the picture above).
  • Beads for eyes.
  • Beads for Santa’s Christmas tree.

Yes, I got into beads. I never thought I would, but I did follow the advice of my quilting sister Mary Sue Suit  “Don’t get carried away. Beads can be additive!” And, I could still be beading if other ornaments weren’t calling.

Next up is going to be Snowflake ornament on 14 pt with lots of open work and metallic threat. Stay tuned!

To read how easy it is to make these ornaments, please see our blog that explains how to make a needlepoint Christmas ornament.

Personalized needlepoint kits on 14 pt and 18 pt canvas will be available on NeedlePaint.com very soon!

Super Cute Puppy Needlepoint Canvas for a Pillow

I worked on this puppy needlepoint canvas with a customer last week, and had to share it!

Cute Puppy Needlepoint Canvas

We cropped the image, and changed the background to be all blue and green.  The size was 13.3 inches by 9.2 inches, on 14 mesh zweigart canvas.  We also changed some of the floss colors on the puppy to off whites and browns to match the photo better.

What is great about this picture is how close up it is, and of course the puppy, it will be an amazing pillow when it is finished!

Puppy Needlepoint Canvas "Stitched Preview"