One of the kindest things about modern needlepoint is the printed canvas. Unlike counted cross stitch, where you work from a paper chart and count every square, a printed needlepoint canvas has the whole design printed straight onto the mesh in colour. In effect, the canvas is the instructions. Even so, a few tips make reading it much easier — especially in your first weeks of stitching.
What you are looking at
Spread the canvas out and you will see the design as coloured areas on the woven mesh, usually with a margin of blank canvas around the edge. Each little square of mesh — each intersection of threads — is one stitch. Your job is simply to cover each printed colour with wool of the matching shade. When every intersection is stitched, the picture is complete.
Match wool to print, not to perfection
New stitchers sometimes worry when a printed edge runs slightly across a mesh square: should that stitch be red or cream? The honest answer is that it rarely matters — choose whichever colour the square is mostly showing, and keep the design's lines smooth. Printed canvases are a guide, not a test. Seen from a polite distance (which is how every cushion is seen), your judgement calls will be invisible.
Work the design first, the background last
Most stitchers find it easiest to stitch the main motifs first — the flowers, the figures, the details — and fill in the background at the end. The printed shapes are easiest to follow while the canvas around them is still bare, and the background then becomes a lovely, mindless fill: perfect television stitching. Starting somewhere near the middle of the canvas also helps keep everything evenly placed.
Light makes everything easier
Colours on canvas are easiest to tell apart in good light — daylight is best, and a daylight lamp earns its keep on winter evenings. If two shades look similar (two greens, say), compare your wools against the printed areas side by side before you thread up, and keep each shade with its own label or bag so they never swap places.
Trust the canvas
After the first few evenings, reading a printed canvas stops being a skill and becomes a pleasure — the design leads, you follow, and the picture grows under your hands. It is the gentlest introduction to needlepoint there is.
If you fancy putting this into practice, our Start Here collection is full of clearly printed, beginner-friendly needlepoint kits with bold, easy-to-read designs.