Ginger Cat with a Cocktail Cross Stitch Pattern

About this ginger cat cross stitch pattern

The cat rests one elbow on the bar and holds its glass up like a toast, with the satisfied half-smile of a cat on its second drink. A slice of citrus and a sprig of mint sit on the rim. The wooden bar runs along the bottom, which gives the design a solid base, and thick outlines keep it readable from across a room.

It’s a home-bar piece first and a gift for a friend whose cat runs the house second. For a second home-bar piece, the Sloth with a Coconut Cocktail has the same drink-in-hand humor; our cat round-up has more cats.

What you need

• Fabric: 14-count Aida in white, cut to at least 18“ x 18“ (3“ around the design for hooping and framing).
• Thread: 19 DMC colors, about 22 skeins in total, stitched with two strands. The main colors are 950 Desert Sand – Light (2,856 stitches), 3826 Golden Brown (2,719), 3863 Mocha Beige – Medium (2,633) and 3827 Golden Brown – Pale (2,367).
• Needle: a size 24 tapestry needle.
• Stitches: full cross stitches only, with no backstitch.

Difficulty and stitching time

The cat itself is easy: big tabby stripes in 3826 Golden Brown, cream 950 Desert Sand – Light and 3827 Golden Brown – Pale. The Advanced rating comes from the cocktail. The glass is built from seven pale greens and whites that shade into each other one or two stitches at a time.

At 15,477 stitches, expect roughly 155 to 260 hours at a steady 60 to 100 stitches an hour.

Tips for stitching this pattern

• Card the seven glass colors in order. 928, 164, 14, 470, 15, 704 and 3865 go from lightest to darkest; label each with its chart symbol, because 14 Apple Green – Pale, 3865 Winter White and 928 Gray Green – Very Light are hard to tell apart off the skein.
• Stitch the cocktail in one sitting. Work it color by color within that small area, so you’re not relearning the shading each time you come back to it.
• Do the eyes before the stripes around them. The eyes are only 47 stitches of 3013 Khaki Green – Light and 3348 Yellow Green – Light. With them in first, it’s easier to keep the gaze lined up.

Size, fabric and framing

On 14-count Aida the finished design measures 12.0“ x 11.3“ (30.5 x 28.7 cm). On 16-count it comes out at 10.5“ x 9.9“, and on 18-count at 9.3“ x 8.8“. For the 14-count version, a 14“ x 18“ frame leaves room for a mat.

A dark wood frame echoes the bar and looks at home over a drinks cabinet.

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