Here’s the latest from Laura!

” I usually have several projects going—at least one 18 count and one 13 count. Right now, I’m finishing up a Kelly Clark design, Garden Topiaries. I’ve changed the colors slightly, to match my daughter’s bedroom.

You can change colors on canvases if you want. Sometimes you want to use a thread you already have, or you want to match other pieces. You might like yellowish greens better than the blueish greens on a canvas. You might want to use metallic thread or fuzzy on a piece. If you don’t like pink, but a canvas you love otherwise has pink flowers, consider changing those pink flowers to a color you like better. Be sure the color you change to is the same intensity of the original.

There are some important things to remember before changing color. You can’t cover dark canvas with light colored thread. If you want to do a dark thread over light canvas, you might need to color that canvas so you don’t have light flecks showing through—I think it looks like dandruff—not a look you want on your couch! There are pens to color canvas—they are called Prismacolour and are available at Michael’s. They have a fat end and a fine point and come in many colors. You don’t need to heavily color the canvas, just cover the white. One of my favorite pieces is a Tree of Life piece from L’esprit de France. I decided to do the background in navy blue and stitched quite a bit before I saw the dandruff. So I colored the rest of the canvas and had to go back and dot over the white spots, which took forever. Another tip from this piece—color the canvas BEFORE you stitch anything. It took a long time for me to color around the already stitched design.

You also want to consider what attracted you to the canvas in the first place. If it’s painted with lots of metallic and you want to do it in wool, will you like it as well? Also, changing lots of colors can be confusing for you. I did a CanvasWorks belt for my mother and changed most of the colors. It was a graphic design and I got rather discombobulated, trying to remember which color went where.

Remember, you’re the artist—do what makes you happy. That’s what keeps you stitching.

Laura