Your stocking is almost stitched, but the nameplate at the top is still blank.
Most Spider Spun stockings come with the name already printed across the top. But there are situations when you may order without the name. Maybe you’re stitching for a new baby and don’t know the name yet. Or you’re stitching for future son- or daughter-in-laws. Maybe you ordered a few stockings and want to let your children decide which design they prefer. We’ve heard it all! That's why an alphabet chart comes in every canvas, so you can add the name whenever you're ready.
Here's how to add it. You need a little patience and the right materials.
This is also available as a step-by-step video tutorial!
What you'll need
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Your alphabet chart with the name charted out
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Your canvas
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A pencil
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A ruler
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A tapestry needle
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Acrylic paint (two colors), a small dish, water, and a fine short-haired brush
Step one: find the center of your chart
Before you touch the canvas, mark up the paper chart. You need the horizontal center and the vertical center, because that's your starting point zero. It's what you work out from in both directions.
A chart bought professionally should already have red markings showing the center. If you charted the name yourself, it won't, and that's no problem. You simply add them.
Three ways to do this, from most precise to least.
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Count intersections. The most accurate. Count every square across the name, then divide by two. On the chart I was working from, the name came to 36 intersections across. Half of 36 is 18, so the center falls right after the 18th box. Count again to confirm, then mark the line.
Please note: every box on the chart represents one intersection on the canvas. That's the whole relationship, and once it clicks the rest of this is arithmetic. -
Measure with a ruler. Put your ruler along the edge of the name, get the width, halve it. Mine measured 3¼ inches, so half is 1⅝ inches. I marked at 1⅝ and it landed on the same line counting did. This is the one I reach for on a long name, when counting to sixty-odd squares starts to feel like a punishment.
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Fold your chart. Fastest and least precise, and good enough a lot of the time. Find the center letter, fold the paper in half down the middle of it, and there's your line.
If you want to fold properly instead of eyeballing it, here's a trick worth having. Take a tapestry needle and pierce the bottom corner of the chart, then pierce the matching spot on the other edge. Line those two holes up, and fold in the center. You can see through the holes when they match. FYI: This is the same way you'd match dart points sewing. When I did this it came out one square off from the counted center. Again, it’s not as precise, but in the scheme of things, one square difference will likely not make a huge difference, visually.
Step two: find the vertical center
Same job, top to bottom, and this one matters more.
Horizontally you have some forgiveness. Vertically, you want the same amount of space above the name and below it, or it looks off in a way people notice without knowing why. So on the vertical, count.
Count the height of your letters, ignoring descenders and tails. The main body only. Mine came to 13 stitches high.
In my example, 13 divided by 2 is 6.5, which sounds like a problem and isn't. Landing on a half means one whole stitch is the center. Six above, six below, and the seventh is the middle. Mark that one.
Then check your work. Count the empty rows above the name and below it. I had five and five. That's what you want, if your alphabet is also 13 stitches high.
Your formulas:
- Center of lettering = height of nameplate area / 2
- Number of spaces above and below lettering = (height of nameplate area - height of letters) / 2
If the top and bottom don't match, leave the bottom alone and add an extra line to the nameplate area at the top. Stitch that extra row in white and nobody will know. This will likely cut into your top colored border. If you want to keep four colored stitches at the top, just add a row of the border color at the top above the design.
Step three: find the center of your canvas
Same process, different surface.
For the horizontal center, you could count every thread across the nameplate. I don't, and here's my reasoning. When that canvas gets sewn into a stocking, the seam eats into a row or half a row at the edges. It doesn't have to be perfect. It’s also so many intersections that I inevitably lose the count after 18 or so intersections.
So, I measure instead of counting the horizontal center. My nameplate came out to 8⅛ inches wide. Half of that is 4 1/16, and I rounded to 4 to make life easier. Using a ruler, find the four-inch mark on your canvas, look for the nearest intersection, mark it all the way down. That is your horizontal center.
For the vertical center, you do need precision, so just like on the chart, I recommend counting this. Remember to mark the vertical center with pencil.
If there is no nameplate on your canvas, it may be harder to figure out where the vertical center should be. In this instance, I would eyeball where I think the vertical center of the letters should be, and mark it. If it’s off by one stitch up or down on a canvas with no defined nameplate, it likely won’t be noticeable. As long as it looks good to you!
When the canvas doesn't match the chart
If for some reason, something goes wrong and the canvas doesn’t exactly match the chart, do not freak out. It's fixable!
You don't need to re-chart anything. You center from the middle and work outward, so the name stays balanced regardless of what the edges do. By working from the center points, your name will always stay centered.
Step four: choose what you're marking with
This is the part I have opinions about.
Watered-down acrylic paint with a fine brush is the most professional way to do it, and it's what I use. The reason is color and longevity. If your name has a base and an accent, you lay both down and then stitch without thinking. Acrylic paint does not budge. It will not bleed during finishing. Use acrylic! Also, make sure to get short-haired brushes instead of long ones. They're easier to control. If you keep some white paint on hand, you can easily fix any errors.
A pencil also works. You lose the color variation, so you'll check your chart as you stitch and leave gaps for the accents.
A Sharpie works too, with the same color limitation. Sharpie shouldn’t bleed during finishing, but it may show through white. You may want to test a stitch or two away from your design, first.
Absolutely DO NOT use colored markers, and don't use acrylic paint pens. I know why you'd want to, because I wanted to. They seem so much easier to use. I bought them and I tested them. Even the ones labeled water resistant aren't. What you need is something colorfast that won't bleed into your yarn if it meets water or steam during blocking.
A note on why I do all the marking before I stitch anything. I want stitching to be mindless. I stitch while I'm listening to an audiobook or half-watching something, and I don't want to cross-reference a chart the whole time. So, I always front-load the fiddly part.
Step five: transfer the chart
Here are a few setup things before you paint.
Test the acrylic paint mixture. It’s not a bad idea to test paint a few intersections off to the side to make sure you get the liquid-to-paint ratio down. You don’t want it too thick, and you don’t want it so thin that the paint bleeds from one intersection to the next or the color is too faint. I basically wet the brush, then quickly dab it in a tiny bit of paint. Then, I wipe any excess paint off on my paper plate.
Turn your canvas upside down. You're about to work with a wet brush and a cup of water directly over stitches somebody spent months on. Flip it so any drips land on bare canvas.
Work from an upside-down chart too. Don't fight it, don't keep rotating things to check. Stop thinking of it as letters and start thinking of it as an image, a pattern of filled and empty squares. It's easier this way, and it stops you second-guessing.
Paint your lightest, base color everywhere first, then come back for the accents.
Start at your center intersection and work out. Choose one letter, then count from the chart, match it to the canvas, and mark with paint. As you finish a chunk, mark it off on your chart. It's easy to lose your place, especially with kids, or dogs, or Amazon deliveries happening around you.
After a full letter, stop and check you still have the same number of rows above and below. If you're off, adjust the row at the top and carry on.
One practical thing: watch for stray yarn hairs getting into your paint. They will.
On color matching
Your paint does not need to match your thread exactly. Mine was charted (and will be stitched) in red and wine. I painted it in pink and oxblood, because that's what I had and it was still legible for stitching.
All of that paint gets covered by stitches. What you need is contrast, enough difference between base and accent that your own eyes can follow it while you work. Paint colors representative of the chart are close enough.
When you make a mistake, and you will
I miscounted and mis-painted while working on this tutorial (and almost every time I actually do it).
If you make a mistake with paint, you can wait until your current layer dries and paint over it with white, just like it’s white-out. If you’re impatient or don’t have white paint, you can mark the error in pencil, straight over the paint, and give yourself a rule: pencil over paint means do not stitch. Write yourself a note on your chart, if you want. Then, keep going.
When the arithmetic falls apart, find a landmark on the canvas you're happy with and build from there. None of this is permanent! You can always erase or paint over it, and start again 🙂
Adding the accents
Once the base color of every letter is painted and dried, go back over with your darker accent color.
Accents don't need to be precise. I don't count them. I look at the letter and put them where they look right. If you want to count and go exactly by the chart, do that! If it looks good to you, it looks good.
Now, your chart is transferred, and you’re ready to stitch!
