Needlepoint vs Cross Stitch: What's the Difference?

Needlepoint canvas is sold by mesh count — 10, 13, 14 or 18 holes per inch — and it is stiff enough to hold its shape without a hoop. Mono canvas is a plain single-thread weave that suits most work; interlock canvas locks the threads at each intersection so it does not fray or distort when the piece will be cut close, like a small ornament or a belt. Cross stitch fabric is soft: Aida comes in 11, 14, 16 and 18 count, and evenweave or linen in 28 and 32 count worked over two threads, which gives the same stitch size as 14- and 16-count Aida.

Thread follows the fabric. Needlepoint on 13 or 14 mesh takes tapestry wool or three strands of Persian wool; on 18 mesh, one or two strands of Persian, or six strands of cotton floss. Cross stitch on 14-count Aida takes two strands of six-stranded cotton such as DMC, three on 11-count, one on 18-count. Because needlepoint covers every hole and uses a heavier yarn, a needlepoint piece uses roughly two to three times the fibre of a cross stitch piece with the same number of stitches — that is where most of the price difference comes from.

Take a 100×100 chart: ten thousand stitches. In cross stitch on 14-count that is a 7-inch square, and if the design has a plain fabric background you only stitch the motif — often half the grid. In needlepoint on 14 mesh it is the same 7-inch square, but every hole is stitched, background included, and each tent stitch is one diagonal rather than two. Most stitchers manage 150 to 250 cross stitches an hour with two strands, and a similar rate of tent stitches; a full-coverage needlepoint square takes about as long as a full-coverage cross stitch one, and considerably longer than a cross stitch with the background left open.

On materials, a cross stitch 100×100 needs a fat quarter of Aida and somewhere between ten and twenty skeins of floss; a needlepoint of the same size needs a piece of canvas with a two-inch margin and typically twenty to forty skeins of tapestry wool. The thread list in MakeBead’s export gives the stitch count per colour, which is the number you need for either estimate: divide by the stitches per skein for the fibre you plan to use, and round up.

A counted cross stitch chart works as a needlepoint chart without changes: one square is one stitch in both. The differences are in what you add. Needlepoint has no bare background, so a chart with white “unstitched” areas needs a background colour chosen and counted; and because tent stitches all lean the same way, large single-colour areas are usually worked in basketweave to keep the canvas from skewing — which the chart does not show, and the stitcher decides. Going the other way, a painted needlepoint canvas has no chart at all, so a counted version has to be made — a photo of the canvas through the cross stitch converter gets you a symbol chart in an afternoon.

Symbols matter more in needlepoint than in cross stitch, since wool colours sit closer together than cotton and canvas mesh is coarser: turn symbols on before printing, and cap the palette at the number of wool colours you can actually tell apart under a lamp — fifteen is plenty for most pieces.