Review: Cross Stitch with Cattitude

It’s no secret that I’m a cat person (I even shared a collection of black cat cross stitch patterns in honor of my favorite black cat, Baron) so when I saw that a book full of cat-themed cross stitch patterns existed I had to check it out immediately.

Cross Stitch with Cattitude by Emma Congdon includes 20 designs inspired by our feline companions, or should I say the cats that are gracious enough to put up with our human nonsense in exchange for food.

The patterns are colorful, sarcastic and full of cattitude, from sentiments like “feed me and tell my I’m pretty” to “you work and I judge” to “hiss off” and “how about no” for those days when we just don’t want to deal with humans. (You can see a few of the patterns on the Amazon listing for the book.)

The designs are mostly from the cat’s point of view but a few take the human’s side, for instance saying it’s not that we’re crazy cat ladies so much as everyone else are crazy people persons.

There are also a few designs that include different cat faces and activities more than text, which is a lot of fun. The different cats on the “purrsonalities” sampler could be stitched individually on a card or as a mini design for a cat-loving friend.

Each pattern includes a stitch count and size and tells you what kind of fabric was used. The charts are large, taking up either two or four pages, and all the DMC colors are listed with the pattern (there’s also a conversion chart if you like different thread).

The book is also filled with sarcastic notes from the cats, which, if you’ve ever met a housecat, will sound familiar.

If you’re a cat lover or you know a cat lover you’d like to stitch for, this book is a lot of fun and will let you create colorful, snarky and sweet cat cross stitch designs.

About the book: 112 pages, paperback, 20 patterns. Published 2023 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price

I don’t usually cross stitch text or add words to my cross stitch projects. Sometimes I will sign things using basic block lettering worked in backstitch (luckily my initials are pretty easy to stitch), but if you give your cross stitch as a gift or otherwise want to personalize it, adding text is a great way to go.

But if a project didn’t already come with text, and you don’t want to draw your own, you’ll need a good cross stitch font that you can use for your project.

I like collecting fonts that are easy to read and to stitch and that would be good for lots of different uses.

For example I really like this bold alphabet font from Cross Stitch with Art, which has both capital and lowercase letters as well as numbers if you need them for dates or other information on your design. The capital letters are an inch/2.5 cm/14 stitches tall, which makes it easy to figure out how much space you need to leave for them. It’s a nice, basic, readable serif font you can use for lots of project.

If you want a script font that’s still really readable, check out Magic Calligraphy from Soft Pattern Designs. This hand drawn font has upper case letters around 28 stitches tall, with lower case letters mostly being around 20 stitches (though the ones that go up or down a lot like f, p and y are bigger). The numbers also vary a bit in size but range from 25 to 29 stitches.

Sometimes you just want a classic font that looks like sports lettering, and in that case you’re going to need Varsity, an all caps font from Stitch Mod. This one has letters that are 21 stitches tall, and it includes capital letters and numbers. But there are definitely times this one would come in handy!

Another sometimes useful and really cute font is this alphabet block letters alphabet from Stitch Junction. These letters are all upper case and look like classic building blocks, and there are also numbers available. This one would be perfect for a birth announcement project or some other cross stitch for the baby’s room.

And if that’s not enough for you, check out this post with 85 free cross stitch fonts for you to try!

Have you read?