Restoring Great Grandmas Needlepoint

This was a project that was a challenge.

The original needlepoint ( pictured)was a very old ,damaged, faded stool top cover that a customer's Grandmother had worked. She wanted to replace the piece but still retain as exact as possible the original design. The original was painted on Penelope canvas , but worked 10st, so that was no problem. The cover was so faded it was hard to tell what the original colors were, so I used the back (pictured )to get a feel of the colors. The back too had it's problems, faded and messy , with layers of fibers covering other fibers......so I just dug around and made a judgement call. The last problem after it had be copied,painted stitch by stitch, when measured , the piece was not round...so I added what was needed to make it symmetrical...this is not an unusual problem when counting...your count does not always measure the same , horizontally or vertically, on the canvas..after all it is material and you should always check, and make any adjustments...I have a feeling the the count was off in the original to begin with, because I had to had an inch horizontally...the original was so out of shaped who knows....anyway, I came pretty close to the original in feeling and color....a nice way to honor Great Grandmas original project...it is always nice to save the original piece , but sometimes it is just too damaged , so a replacement is in order..........that's why you should watch out for the sun!!!!you can't replace the colors when faded...