Needlepoint Cushions

Hand-stitched needlepoint cushions — travel cities, slogans, coastal scenes and zodiac designs. Every one 45cm square with a velvet reverse and inner cushion included.

What needlepoint is, and why it costs more

Needlepoint is stitched by hand through an open canvas, one stitch at a time. A single 45cm cushion face contains many thousands of individual stitches, which is the entire reason these sit at £60-£65 rather than the £15 a printed cushion costs.

What you get for it is threefold. Real texture — the surface has depth and catches light, where a print is flat. Clean colour — hand stitching puts colours side by side without the bleed you see at the edges of printed fabric, which is why the geometric designs here look crisp. And durability — a needlepoint face will not crack, peel or fade the way a printed one does after a few years in a sunny room.

The four groups

Travel cities

London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Dubai and Havana. Architecture suits the technique better than almost anything, because needlepoint builds an image from a grid and buildings are straight lines and stacked blocks.

These work grouped — two or three cities on one sofa reads as a considered collection rather than a souvenir. One on its own tells a more specific story.

Coastal and holiday

Amalfi, Ibiza, Mykonos, St. Barts, St. Tropez, Tulum, Miami and Aspen. Warmer and more painterly than the city designs, and generally easier to place in a room that already has a scheme.

Slogans

The joke in every one of these is the medium. Needlepoint is the craft of samplers and sitting rooms — patient, traditional, entirely respectable. Someone hand-stitching something blunt is funnier than printing it, which is why these land where a printed slogan cushion would just look cheap.

Personal

Zodiac signs and the dog cushion. These give well because they reference something specific about the recipient rather than a general aesthetic.

How to actually use them

One statement cushion works better than three. The bold designs here — Beverly Hills, Tulum, Miami — are loud enough to carry a plain sofa on their own, and putting them together means none of them wins.

If you want a group, pick a palette rather than a theme. The warm-toned ones (Havana, Miami, Tulum, Ibiza) sit together comfortably. So do the blues (London, Mykonos, Aspen).

Every cushion is fully reversible, which is more useful than it sounds. The velvet back gives you a plain block of colour, so you can turn the graphic face down when a room needs quieting — or when particular guests visit.

Size and fill

All 45cm x 45cm square, except Please Leave By 9, which is a rectangular lumbar cushion. Each includes an inner hollowfibre cushion, so nothing further is needed.

Care

Spot clean the needlepoint face and blot rather than rub. Do not machine wash — hand stitching does not survive machine agitation, and this is the single most common way a needlepoint cushion gets ruined.

Keep them out of prolonged direct sunlight. Turn them occasionally so both faces wear evenly, and remove the inner cushion to air it every few months.