The Petit-Point Tutorial - Part Two

Picking up from where we left off yesterday....

Now I am ready to do the petit-point. I used to go across on both sides of the paper – making it look the same on both sides, but it was much thicker, and made it very difficult to attach it to anything else, as the thread on the back got in the way.

I do all the stitching on the diagonal, because I want to hide as much of the background as I can. Once you’ve done one, you’ll find yourself experimenting with other stitching patterns – endless fun!

First stitch:

I just hold the end of the thread against the back as I stitch, as I have found making a knot unnecessary. I just keep the loose end out of the way of the stitching.

Few more stitches done here:

Here is where you get creative – you can make the line of stitches as thin or wide as you like – and then start moving it down the paper, or across the paper – making different patterns as you go – there is no set way to do this, just follow where your fingers want to go!

On the back, I return the needle through the hole next to the stitch I just made, to go back across the paper. Here is a picture of how the reverse side looks.

You continue in the same way – going across the paper, down the paper, or down a ways, then across, as in the following pictures:

I have gone down the paper – starting from the upper right hand corner in this picture. I went down and then I decided to go across the paper – look how the colors are changing as the stitches are made! Once I went across, then I went down the other side of the paper – as above. Here is how the reverse side looks:

Then I continued with the second pass of miniature needlepoint.

and the reverse look like this:

Here you can see where I crossed over the back of the paper to continue in a blank part of the front of the paper. This will not show in the front of the piece.
Keeping on, I continued to fill in the blank parts of the paper, watching how the fiber keeps changing colors as I went. Each one of these is totally unique, as you will never start from the same place or make the exact same stitches – to me, that is part of the real charm of doing these!

As you can see, this completed filling in the bottom part of the paper.
Here is the reverse view:

Now I will have to jump across the back of the paper to reach the upper blank parts, to begin filling them in.

Here’s the next section done:

You can now begin to see how the finished piece will look – on this fourth pass, I did have to separate another piece of fiber from the two plies that were left. Happily, that simply doesn’t matter in this, as the change in color becomes part of the pattern!

And here’s the reverse:

Now we are just about done – one more pass will do it! There is something so satisfying about finishing one of these up – a little bitty masterpiece!

I am really liking the color combination here! And to think there’s SO many color combinations in the Caron Watercolours fibers! It would take years….

And that is it! You now have a miniature needlepoint paper canvas – a totally unique little work of art!