I thought I'd list some things I've learned through my decades of needlepoint here, just in case they help someone else.
Stitching Faces: I like to use a touch of metallic or a bead (or perhaps even a flat backed Swarovski crystal) to add a highlight to eyes when stitching faces. I stitch features like eyes and mouths slowly as one stitch can change the expression. Take a stitch, then take a look, repeat. I usually do faces in tent stitches with only 1-2 plies of a silk floss and have found a reverse tent stitch \ may be useful at the corner of an eye or the mouth. If your piece is on 13 count, I've found using one ply of Impressions allows the underlying painted areas to show, very useful if you want an outlined nose or faint eyebrows to be visible without your having to stitch them.
Wash your hands! Do this before you start stitching and occasionally while stitching if you are doing a long stretch with your needle. Hot, sweaty hands or fingers that have touched that candy bar (I'm guilty of that) will transfer stuff you don't want to your needlework.
Normally stitch with an 18 inch length of thread to avoid knots. Don't have a ruler? For most of us, the length of our arm from our elbow to the tip of our middle finger is roughly 18 inches. However, if you are doing a piece with lots of Jean Hilton-type string art stitches, you'll need long-long-longer lengths, just to work a stitch without having to start a new thread before you finish just one complicated stitch. By the way, most of us have finger joints that are an inch long. This also helps with rough measurements.
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