Child and Puppy Best Friends Cross Stitch Pattern

About this child and puppy cross stitch pattern

The child sits with legs out in denim overalls and brown boots, holding a golden puppy close against a chunky green cardigan. Both faces wear the same happy, eyes-closed smile, and there’s no background, so the two figures carry the whole design.

It’s a gift-first pattern: something to stitch for a new puppy joining the family, a child’s first pet or a nursery wall. Nothing in it is tied to a season, so it can stay up all year. For a second child-and-animal piece in the same warm style, see Child Hugging a Highland Cow.

What you need

• Fabric: 14-count Aida in white, cut to at least 19“ x 22“ (3“ around the design for hooping and framing).
• Thread: 19 DMC colors, about 24 skeins in total, stitched with two strands. The main colors are 310 Black (4,431 stitches), 3346 Hunter Green (2,510), 967 Apricot – Very Light (2,488) and 839 Beige Brown – Dark (2,481).
• Needle: a size 24 tapestry needle.
• Stitches: full cross stitches only, with no backstitch.

Difficulty and stitching time

It’s rated Advanced. At 22,028 stitches it’s a large project, roughly 220 to 370 hours at a steady 60 to 100 stitches an hour. Black alone covers 4,431 stitches, outlining both faces, the puppy and every fold of the clothes, and three close greens (3346, 988 and 3345) fill the beanie and cardigan with 5,285 stitches between them.

Tips for stitching this pattern

• Stitch both faces first. The expressions carry this design. With them in place, you have a fixed point to build the rest of the piece around.
• Keep the three greens in their zones. 3346 Hunter Green, 988 Forest Green – Medium and 3345 Hunter Green – Dark sit side by side in the knit. Kept apart, they give the cardigan its texture; mixed up, it flattens into one green.
• Do the overalls as their own block. The denim is 932 Antique Blue – Light (1,065 stitches), the only blue in the chart, so it’s an easy section to finish in one go once the outline is in.

Size, fabric and framing

On 14-count Aida the finished design measures 12.3“ x 15.6“ (31.2 x 39.6 cm). On 16-count it comes out at 10.8“ x 13.7“, and on 18-count at 9.6“ x 12.2“. For the 14-count version, a 16“ x 20“ frame leaves room for a mat.

A piece this personal is worth a proper frame rather than a hoop; our framing guide walks through the options.

What’s in the free PDF

• A cover page and a one-page overview with a preview of the design
• The chart, split across as many printable pages as you choose, in color or black and white, with a symbol for every DMC color, center lines, a mini-map showing which part of the design each page covers and a color key on every page
• The thread list: DMC number, color name, number of stitches and skeins to buy for each color
• The finished size on 11-, 14-, 16-, 18- and 28-count Aida