Needlepoint Stretching and Blocking

Beautiful hand stitched butterflies, needlepoint, framed in a gorgeous gold frame. It took a bit of stretching and blocking to get the needlework to square up and fit properly in the frame.

Framing Needlepoint and other hand stitching

Needlepoint and other fine hand stitching can sometimes leave the canvas askew. It is the nature of the tiny stitches to pull and twist the canvas or mesh. We had a perfect example come into our shop the other day. A beautiful piece that was pulled into an uneven shape from the stitches. In order to properly frame this, it needed to be returned to it's original shape by blocking or squaring up so it would have corners at right angles.

Needlepoint canvas is askew. Needs to be blocked

We tacked it to our blocking board, and gently coaxed those tiny fibers into relaxing and allowing the canvas to return to its original shape. It did take more than one round of stretching to get it just right.