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What is Tapestry?

Traditionally, in English, "tapestry" has two senses. It means work using a loom-weaving technique, but it also means a rather large textile wall-hanging with a figurative design. The Bayeux Tapestry is, in fact, an embroidery, so it’s not a tapestry in the first sense.
The distinction is made more confusing by the French equivalent tapisserie which also covers needlepoint work.

So what is needlepoint? Needlepoint is a type of canvas work, where yarn is stitched through a stiff, open-weave canvas. It can be worked using a variety of stitches to achieve different effects, but many designs use just a plain tent stitch,
and rely on colour changes to define the design.

Strictly speaking, my work is needlepoint, or - an even a more generic term - canvas work. These days, however, the word tapestry seems to be applied to needlepoint techniques, and certainly to widely available kits.

So, right or wrong, I’m happy to use the word Tapestry to describe my work.

Wool and canvas

I use Appleton’s 4 ply Tapestry wool, which I buy in skeins. Each skein contains 10m of wool.

I use Zweigart 14hpi (holes per inch) Interlock Canvas.

To begin with I used 12 hpi canvas. Slightly larger holes, and perhaps easier to work, but I found the white canvas often showed through. I tried colouring the canvas using waterproof coloured pens, or Acrylic pens. This seemed to work well, and they provided an additional guide when sewing. However, despite being waterproof or water-resistant, I found the colours leeched into the wool during Blocking. I now use 14 hpi canvas. The stitching is a little tighter and sharper, and I’ve found no need to pre-colour the canvas, because the wool fill the holes better, and hides the canvas.

Blocking

Tapestry stitches tend to pull the canvas out of shape. It can be corrected by the process of Blocking.

First I damp the tapestry with clean water to soften it and make it pliable, using a spray. I have a backboard - a piece of 12mm plywood. I cover it with a sheet of polythene to keep it dry, and I lay a piece of thick blotting paper down.
I lay the canvas down, face up, and begin work.

Starting along one edge, I pull it into shape, stretching it a little as I go, using pins or small nails to hold it to its correct shape. The pins are often removed and repositioned to keep the edges straight, and the tapestry square and taut. An easy way to check squareness is to use a tape measure to make sure that each diagonal is equal. Sometimes it’s necessary to spray more
water to keep it damp. When everything is in place, I damp - not soak - it again, and leave it to dry.

When the tapestry is dry, after two or three days, it will retain its shape. It can always be re-blocked if necessary.

Blocking becomes more difficult when both left and right stitching is used. The tapestry tends to distort under the opposing tensions, and it is tricky to get everything back into shape.