NEEDLEPOINT COASTERS

I’ve been working on a few new ideas for my needlepoint canvas designs and I’ve been wanting to offer something smaller. I don’t necessarily think of ornaments when I look at my designs but I know there’s so many other uses for smaller squares and rounds. bag tag? pillow inset? coaster? I mapped out some 4” squares in my stitchsketch app using the original bead designs but wondered how to work out the idea of stripes.

years ago, when I was painting furniture and home accents, I loved striping everything (I still do) and I had a few really large wooden plates/platters that I hand-painted in variegated, colorful stripes. there are only 4 in existence - I have one, my mother, my aunt Libby and my aunt kate - which makes them that much more special. I thought making a small 4-5” round canvas withs stripes and a center place for a monogram would be super cute and easy enough to stitch.

maybe easy to stitch but not easy to paint.

there’s so many layers of paint trying to hide all the mistakes 🙄

I must’ve spent 4 hours trying to figure this out. I started with painting a 5” striped circle with a center hole for a monogram and it just wasn’t working. then I switched to painted a striped circle without the open center and finally I tried painting just a large, 5” circle in a solid color. I have no idea why I couldn’t get it right but after wasting canvas and time I realized I should just give it a rest. I’m not saying it’ll never happen but I’m not going to force it to happen right now.

what I did get sorted out was a beautiful coaster canvas, in four different colorways.

I’m curious - would you stitch four different squares for coasters or four of the same colorway? what else would you use the squares for??