I’ve been promising to talk about starting threads for a while now. It’s a complicated subject. You can start a thread by putting a knot on the back side. You can also start stitching by putting a knot on the front side and stitching over the thread that goes from the knot to where you start your first stitch, or you can start stitching without a knot at all. I’ve used all three techniques on Lani’s Autumn Leaves and I think which one you choose depends on the threads, the area to be stitched and your own personal preference. Let me explain.
You’ve probably heard of away knots, or in line knots, or waste knots. These are all knots put in various places on the top of the canvas. The thread runs from the knot on top of the canvas along the back and then comes up where you plan to start stitching. Once you have finished that area, the knot is trimmed off. You do that by pulling up on the knot and cutting the thread as close to the canvas as you can. You can look at various types of starting top knots at these websites.
http://needlepoint.about.com/od/learnneedlepoint/ss/wasteknot.htm
http://www.needlepoint-for-fun.com/basic-needlepoint-stitches.html
http://www.needlepointnow.com/OnLineClassroom/ACSK-3/CanvasPrep.htm
To some extent, which you choose is a matter of personal taste. (Although Shay Pendray never puts her thread more than an inch away from her first stitch and she makes sure she will stitch right over it when she starts.) I don’t use any of these top knot techniques much, although I did use waste knots with the dark brown vein when I started the first brown leaf Using top knots works especially well if you are stitching straight lines or in a straight row. I tend to start my first few stitches on a canvas using waste knots but after a while I abandon them. People who are very careful with the back sides of their designs like the knot on top techniques as they do make for a tidier back. Me, I don’t care. I lavish most of my effort on the front and let the back take care of itself.
I am careful about the knots I tie in a thread that I’m starting, however. If you plan to put a knot on the back of a canvas, make it a small and dense knot. Ever tied a knot and had it turn out with a loop at the end or a much bigger balled knot that you’d planned? Those I trim with my scissors or cut off and replace with a smaller and denser knot. I don’t like a lot of lumps on the back and a knot is rather lumpy. To some extent this technique works best on natural fibers.
I find it easier to tie knots in cotton or silk or wool fibers than I do metallics or nylon threads. Some threads are slippery (Remember how Panache slips out of the needle eye?) and their knots will untie themselves sometimes. If you have a thread like that, consider another starting technique. If your thread is very stiff, like Japan Gold or twist, for example, you can’t tie a knot in it at all. You have to put a loose tail on the back and secure it with stitches taken through the threads already on the back of the canvas and over the loose tail.
Some of these problems can be solved by using techniques that don’t involve knots at all. See the photo above? Thats a double strand of my Impressions, which I’m using for the tan leaves and the purple backgrounds. Any time you are stitching with two strands of a thread you can make a loop “knot” to start the thread. All you do is cut double the length of thread that you normally stitch with. If you use a 24 inch length of thread in your needle, cut twice that, or 48 inches. Then put both ends in the needle’s eye as above. Come up through your canvas but don’t pull the thread all the way through. Just leave enough of the doubled end on the back that you can put the needle through the middle of the loop once you put the needle back down through your canvas. Pull to tighten the thread and the loop will close and secure the threads. This is the technique I used for all the areas on Autumn Leaves where I used Impressions since I doubled the strand to cover and match the other stitches in other types of threads.
Of course once you start a thread, you are going to have to end it eventually when it runs out or when you need to switch to another color. But that’s a topic for another day.
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