How to: Finish Star Needlepoint Ornaments
Stars offer a perfect practice shape for intermediate self-finishers
Finishing a needlepoint star is a great next step after mastering finishing rectangles and squares. With a rectangle and a square, you’ve mastered finishing a right-angle exterior cut.
With a star, you’ll master interior cuts and acute angles of the star points. If you don’t want to dive in on a stitched ornament, create one using blank canvas to practice. Simply trace a star onto canvas (18 mesh is easier to finish with).
I finished these for a finishing services client, Mary. She shared on Instagram she’s going to add them to a patriotic wreath.
Below, you’ll find the detailed process tutorial video, comprehensive list of materials and supplies, and written instructions. This is the format that I use for all paid tutorials, so if you’re interested in more, I hope you consider subscribing.
Finishing a Needlepoint Star Canvas
Difficulty: 2/5 🪡🪡
Prerequisites
Materials
Needlepoint, finished and blocked
Scrap paper and pencil
Cording: I used 9 strands of DMC floss, created with the Lacis cording maker
Fabric lined with a fusible mid-weight fusible interfacing. Some fabric recommendations here. I used a printed cotton.
Pins
Scissors
Iron
For lacing: DMC pearle cotton for lacing
For attaching the cording: Invisible Thread or Fishing Line
A tapestry needle for lacing your canvas
A sharp, thin needle for attaching your cording
Sewing clips aka Wonderclips
You can find a full list of recommended finishing materials here.
Detailed Process Video
In the video, you’ll hear me reference a heart as well, that tutorial is coming soon. Same principles apply for handling interior and exterior acute angles.
Instructions
Front of the Needlepoint Star
Block your canvas using a blocking board, blocking combs, and pins.
Cut out your canvas, leaving at least 1/2 inch to 3/4 of an inch all the way around.
Tip: You can machine sew or back stitch by hand all the way around the outside edge of your canvas to make your canvas stronger. I don’t typically do this but if you’re a tight lacer and tend to rip your canvas, you may find this little hack helpful.
Dart your canvas using the following general shape
Using a window, lightbox or other tracing method, trace a copy of your needlepoint canvas. You’ll use this to cut out your matboard and batting. You can also scan it into your Cricut or use a photocopier.
Trim your template two canvas threads smaller on all sides. In your inner corners, I like to angle a bit more and trim this to nearly three canvas threads so your canvas can fold over properly and avoid showing any white canvas in the tight inner corners.
This is why the matboard a little wonky in the video.
Using your template, create a back and a front from your matboard and batting. For this star, I used one piece of batting, but you can certainly use more. I find that less puff does help me get better, tighter corners. However, if you like a little loft, then cut your matboard even smaller. As I mentioned in the video, the batting is cut smaller than my matboard.
Lace the needlepoint around the batting and the matboard. Because you cut the canvas on a bias around the points of the star, it cannot take a lot of tension and will shred if you lace it too tightly. Think if it instead like you’re folding your canvas around the object. Certainly you want a tight look, but if you find that the canvas is starting to pull, ease it. Better to come back around and tighten then shred the whole thing out.
Cover your backing board in fabric
For the back, press your fabric and adhere fusible interfacing using your iron.
Cut your fabric at a 1/2 inch seam allowance and dart like you did for the canvas.
In this tutorial, I showed you the needlepoint side in detail but the fabric follows the exact same approach.
Prepare your cording for sewing
Using a Lacis, make your cording. I used 9 strands of DMC floss for this tutorial.
While you’re learning stars and hearts, it may be helpful to use a thicker cording to start so you can hide any blank canvas showing.
Insert at the top of the ornament and pin around the circumference, twisting as you go to achieve a pretty tight twist around the object.
If you’re using a Lacis, look at your twist. Your twist will always go from Washington to Florida. Start at the top, and go clockwise around your object. Head right!
When you get back to the top, follow the direction of the cording to create your loop. You’ll find that the cording wants to go a certain direction, just go with it. The loop should have enough twist tension on it that it stands upright but doesn’t twist on itself.
I’ve found a 3 color cord really does help keep it from twisting on itself.
Trim the end, and using a chopstick or similar tool with a blunt end that won’t snag, stuff your end inside the star. Pin your loop in place.
If you feel like there’s a lot of canvas showing at this point, take off your cording here and pre-sew your backing board to your needlepoint front. It will zip a lot in there.
Sew on the cording
Starting slightly below the loop, sew on your cording using a sharp, thin needle and your choice of invisible thread or fishing line.
I like to start and stop somewhere other than the loop, so I’m not wrestling with a short length of fishing line at the hardest part. In the video you’ll also notice that I did NOT put a lot of tension on my first few stitches. This is because the thickness of the cording going into such a narrow area was making that part kind of wide. Going back with another pass tightened this all up.
Working your way in the direction of the cording, sew on, periodically pulling on your invisible thread or fishing line to bring everything tighter together.
Once you have everything sewn on, make sure to inspect the edges and corners.
You’ll notice that I found a spot where some canvas was showing. I used a little plastic piece to fold that down into the crack. You can’t do this if you have a lot, but it does work if just a little canvas is peeking out. You can reinforce with more invisible thread stitching in any areas that need it.
Horray, you’re done!
Congratulations on finishing
Canvas Inspiration
By next summer, my goal is to have a patriotic wreath, too. I have the following in various states of incompletedness (I’m a shameless canvas starter).
Tootsie Roll 3D roll up (Similar)
Painted Lady 4th of July by Audrey Wu
The White House (Similar)
Vote by Good Point (I’m finishing this as a magnet/hanging sign)
Vote Pride by Thorn Alexander (check out
here on Substack!) x Island House Needlepoint. I think I’m going to color swap for Gun Violence awareness (Finishing as a pin and then simply pinning it to a ribbon for my wreath).
You can find a lot of patriotic stars and hearts and also Christmastime stars.
This smaller one (Floating Heart Star Canvas) by Kangaroo Paw
This bigger one by Jessica Lahane via KC Needlepoint would make a great center piece.
What about you?
Are you ready to finish your first star? If you have finished one, what tips would you offer?
Thank you endlessly for being a subscriber. It means the world that you’re here and want to put more needlepoint finishing magic into the world. Please share what you create! I’d love to see.
Thank you so much! This is tremendously helpful! I’ve watched the video twice, and now I’m going to get started. Is there a trick to printing the instructions?