Choosing threads for your canvas
The short version: match the thread's thickness to the mesh, pick the fiber for the job it has to do, and buy the background all at once.
What each fiber is good at
How much to buy
More than you expect. Buy the background all at once, from the same dye lot: this is the one that catches people. Hand-dyed fibers vary between lots in a way that shows across a large flat area, and a lot that was in stock in November may be gone by March. Running a skein short halfway through a sky is a real problem, and not a fixable one.
For everything else, buy as you go. Bring the canvas in and we'll pull threads with you. Twenty minutes, and considerably more reliable than guessing from a screen.
Matching thread to mesh, the one that decides everything
Before which fiber, there's a simpler question: is there enough of it to cover the canvas?
A needlepoint canvas is a grid with holes in it. Your job is to cover the grid completely. Too little thread and white canvas grins through between the stitches. Too much and the stitches crowd, the canvas buckles, and the detail goes muddy.
13 mesh has bigger holes and needs more thread in each stitch. 18 mesh needs less. The same silk that covers beautifully on 18 will look starved on 13. This catches almost everyone once.
There's no chart that answers it, because it varies by fiber, by stitch, and by how you pull. Which is why the next section is the actual method.
How many strands
Enough to cover the canvas without crowding the hole, usually more on 13 mesh than on 18. Stitch a few and hold it up to the light. If canvas shows through, add a strand; if the stitches look crowded, drop one.
Nobody gets this from a chart. Everybody gets it from three stitches and a second look.
Which thread for which job
The canvas tells you what the picture is. It doesn't tell you what anything should feel like. That's the choice you're making.
Metallics and overdyes behave differently, and it's worth knowing why
Metallics are stiff, they catch on the canvas, and they fray if you work in long lengths. Use shorter lengths than usual, around twelve inches, and let the needle dangle every so often to untwist. They're worth the trouble in small doses.
Overdyes and hand-dyed fibers shift color along the strand. That's the appeal and it's also the catch: how the color lands depends on which direction you stitch and where you start each length. Work in the same direction throughout an area or you'll get patches that look accidental rather than intentional.
And the dye lot. Hand-dyed fibers vary between batches in a way that shows across a large flat area. Buy the whole background at once.
Bring the canvas in
Color is the reason to do this in person rather than on a screen. A screen is honest about the design and unreliable about the color, and thread color against a painted canvas is a judgment you make by holding one next to the other in daylight.
It takes about twenty minutes. We'll pull more than you need, lay them on the canvas, and take away the ones that don't work. Most people leave with one or two they'd never have chosen from a photograph.
It's free, it's the part of the job we like best, and you don't need an appointment.
The mistakes we see most
The one that causes real disappointment. Buy it all at once.