Cross-Stitch

Charts, patterns and everything needlepoint

Review: Cross Stitch with Cattitude

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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

Have you read?

Toy Story Cross Stitch Patterns

I’m going to go ahead and admit that I totally missed Toy Story 4, so it took my by surprise when Toy Story 5 came out, but let’s celebrate with some Toy Story cross stitch patterns. 

This sweet design including Woody, Buzz and Jessie is from The Xstitch Shop, and they actually have a few different Toy Story options. This one says it is for intermediate stitches, probably because of the size and number of colors, but the sales page doesn’t say how big it is or how many colors it uses. It’s still cute, though!

If you’ve got a fan of Jessie in your household, this collection of Jessie themed icons is super cute to stitch. The design is from Mercury Stitches and it measures 97 by 144 stitches. that comes out to 6.9 by 10.3 inches, or 17.6 by 26.1 cm, and uses 11 colors. It has full and half cross stitches, as well as back stitching and French knots. 

Share the love of friendship with this sweet Woody and Buzz heart hands cross stitch pattern from Pixell Patterns. This design uses eight colors and is shown worked on 14 count fabric, but the notes don’t indicate how bit is is (based on a finished project photo, though, it looks pretty big). 

And for the Buzz Lightyear fans, of course we have to have a “To infinity and beyond” pattern, so here’s one from Silver Lake Stitches. This design is super cute on blue fabric, but use whatever you have. It measures 78 by 92 stitches, which comes out to 5.6 by 6.6 inches, or 14.2 by 16.7 cm, on 14 count fabric. It calls for 14 colors. 

Or if you want to go beyond the core three main character toys, check out this project from ThreeOOne Patterns, which includes our main toys as well as Bo Peep and her sheep, Bullseye the horse, the Slinky dog, Rex, Ham, the Potato Heads and an alien. The design is 310 by 80 stitches, which comes out to 21.14 by 3.5 inches, or 53.7 by 8.9 cm, when worked on 14 count fabric. It uses 65 colors. Or pick out your favorite characters to make a smaller project. 

All those characters and a few more are found on the mini Toy Story character sampler from Knotalot UK (only part of which is shown above). This one uses 31 colors and measures 134 by 108 stitches. It includes whole and fractional stitches, as well as back stitching. On 14 count fabric stitching the whole thing would make a project that’s 9.57 by 7.71 inches, or 24.31 by 19.59 cm.