I have a bit of a soft spot for this cross-stitch picture, it was the first cross-stitch kit I ever stitched. It would have been early 1980’s, I was 16 years old and my mother and I were visiting friends on the Wirral, they took us to Voirrey Crafts at Brimstage Hall where I fell for this Lanarte kit. I think it took me nearly a year to complete it but I did it!

At the time we had two cats, Suky and Tabitha, Suky was mine…apparently, so the story goes, when I was about 7 and our elderly dog died I cried my eyes out for an hour, then with a big sniff said “Does that mean I can have a kitten now?”

I love the way the eyes really stand out on the embroidery. As I recall the cats are stitched with two threads and the background is stitched with a single thread. It measures about 16cm in diameter.

My next project was, of course, the other Lanarte kit in the set, bigger and just as beautiful, I seem to remember it took quite a long tome to complete this one, the eyes are just as gorgeous. This embroidery measures about 22cm diameter

The two little kittens are actually tent stitch, I found this one very challenging as although it’s only 6cm square, there are 28 stitches to the inch, I found it more difficult to count the pattern in fine tent stitch too. I love it, but I wouldn’t choose to do it again!!

I’ve got two dogs now, Zac and Rosie, they’ve been immortalised in an appliqued and embroidered collage of our garden but more of that another day…