Balancing act

Avoiding perfect symmetry also helps to keep your needlepoint designs (and the arrangements of your furniture and knick knacks in your house!) lively. Instead of perfect symmetry in which the same objects are placed on either side of a central axis, such as a pair of candlesticks placed one each on the two ends of a fireplace's mantel, try...More......balancing what could be called "visual weight," instead. Multiple small light-colored objects (remember to group them in odd numbers!) can weigh visually the same as a single larger dark-colored object. In this little needlepoint I designed to express my love for my dear husband, I put the tall and slender ankh in the upper left corner next to the "heavier" expanded part of the central design, while I put the shorter, but horizontal, thus "heavier," little symbol for the soul in the upper right next to the "lighter" compressed part of the central design.