Working with textured and decorative stitches allows you to add drama to an otherwise ordinary needlepoint pattern. But, there are some things you should keep in mind before taking the first stitch on your prepared canvas.
To help illustrate the following points, I have worked the Pear Trio needlepoint pattern in decorative and textured stitches. To see a close-up view of the finished design, click the photo to enlarge.
The first step in interpreting any pattern in decorative or textured stitches is planning. Look at the needlepoint pattern carefully and determine which stitches you want to use. Once you have made your selections, you will need to make sure your selections can be adapted to the pattern. Some stitches adapt easier than others.
Many stitches, such as Cross Stitch, Scotch Stitch or Mosaic Stitch, and the reversed versions of Scotch and Mosaic Stitch are worked over a specific number of canvas intersections. Scotch is worked over 4, while Mosaic and Cross Stitch are worked over 2. In areas where you’ll want the stitches to fill the entire background, calculate how many repetitions of the stitch you can fit.
For example, if your background area consists of 160 stitches in width by 160 stitches in length, you can fit 40 repetitions of Scotch Stitch or Reversed Scotch Stitch (I used Reverse Scotch Stitch in the background of the example), or 80 of Mosaic Stitch or Cross Stitch. To get this number, I divided 160 stitches by 4, which gives me 40 repetitions for Scotch Stitch, and 160 divided by 2 gave me 80 repetitions for Mosaic Stitch or Cross Stitch.
If you are unable to fit whole stitches in the design, the best approach is often to start stitching the background areas from the center outwards, and use partial stitches to fill the edges and corners. In the Fall Fruit Stand pattern, I did use partial Scotch stitches in this manner (you can see them along the top, bottom and sides of the center motif).
Some decorative stitches are best worked whole, rather than as partial stitches. An example of this is the Cross Stitch, which was used in the green checkered bands, and in the maroon border areas.
The pears are worked in Random Long Stitch. Notice that the stitches are worked vertically in the upright pears, and horizontally in the single pear lying on its side. Because random long stitch is basically a filling stitch, I worked this after stitching in the background area. This gave me an area framed in by the Scotch Stitches, which made it easier to stitch than trying to count squares while using random stitches!
The leaves in the yellow band areas are worked in Leaf Stitch, a form of Satin Stitch worked on the diagonal in two directions. A leaf shape is formed, complete with a natural vein where the stitches meet in the center of the motif.
The outer border area of the design is worked in Brick Stitch, but instead of staggering the stitches like bricks, a lined them up in rows.
Working a design in textured or decorative stitches is often faster as well, as many stitches are worked over multiple intersections of canvas rather than one at a time. This project took me 10 hours to complete, rather than an estimated 20 hours I would have needed for Continental Stitch.
The overall effect of using decorative stitches is one of texture with dimension, rather than the usual flat, run of the mill needlepoint.
