Lucky black cats

What with more adventures in my local Cats in Crisis charity shop, cat sitting for some friends' snow-white cat Eira, then finding a sad little note on the doormat when I got back home, saying a furry friend from the neighbourhood had been run over and was 'resting' on St Luke's Rd, it's been a cat-themed week – so here's a feline-based project to round it off...

Wishing you luck

I found these beautiful appliqué kitties in McCall's Sewing in Colour, first published in 1964, which explains: 'The entrancing cats are worked with a hand-operated sewing machine, by way of being an antique, so giving the interesting hoppity-hoppity line'... however, you can get the same results on an electric machine set to a very narrow zig-zag stitch.

Detail showing the 'Hoppity-hoppity' stitching

If you want to go about creating your very own 1960s-style cat picture, all you need are a piece of canvas for the background, black felt for the cats' bodies, two colours of felt for the eyes and flowers, and small pieces of gauze for the flowers (plus ruler, scissors, tracing paper etc). For a grid to follow and detailed instructions, just click here.

What a lovely good luck present this would make!