Stitch Your Cat is coming

Why there's a waitlist

Our pattern maker checks every photo before it draws anything. Today it's built for dogs: show it a cat and it turns the photo away. Teaching it cats means new drawing rules for pointed ears, whiskers and those big eyes, and we'd rather do that properly than send you a pattern that doesn't look like your cat.

The waitlist tells us how many people want it. That's how we decide what to build next.

• What you'll get: an email when Stitch Your Cat opens. Nothing else.
• What we won't do: add you to any other list, or share your email with anyone.
• No date yet. We won't promise one until the pattern maker draws cats well.

How to embroider a cat by hand

You don't have to wait to stitch your cat. Everything the dog course teaches works the same way: black thread on light linen, back stitch for the lines and satin stitch for the small solid shapes. Here's what changes for a cat.

1. Trace the outline. Back stitch the head, the ears and the shoulders. Cat ears are triangles, so go down exactly in the corner hole at each tip before you turn.
2. Stitch the eyes. Cat eyes are big. Outline each eye, then satin stitch the pupil: a narrow slit if the photo is bright, a round pupil if it's soft. Leave a small highlight bare, the same as for a dog. More in how to embroider eyes.
3. Fill the nose. A cat's nose is a small triangle. Fill it with short satin stitches from the middle out, then add one short line down to the mouth.
4. Add the fur. Short strokes from the root toward the tip, following the way the coat grows, mostly on the cheeks and chest. Fewer lines look softer. More in how to embroider fur.
5. Whiskers last. Each whisker is one long straight stitch in a single strand, added at the very end so nothing snags it. A few on each side is plenty.

Tabby stripes? Stitch the edges of the darkest stripes only, the same way you'd stitch a dog's markings. Filling every stripe gets heavy fast.

A custom cat portrait as a gift

A custom cat portrait usually means buying a print or a painting. On Etsy, the median price on the first page of results for "cat portrait custom" was $25.27 when we checked on November 1, 2026, and those results mix prints, paintings and digital files.

A stitched portrait is a different kind of gift: you make it by hand, from a photo of their cat. You can do that today by tracing a clear photo into a simple line drawing. How to turn a photo into an embroidery pattern walks you through it. When Stitch Your Cat opens, the pattern maker will do the drawing for you.

A memorial for a cat

If you're stitching a cat who has died, go gently. An older photo is fine: pick one where the eyes are sharp, even if the rest is soft. Stitch only the lines that feel like them, and add their name underneath in back stitch. There's more on choosing a photo and finishing a keepsake in pet memorial embroidery.

Have a dog too?

Dogs work today. The Stitch Your Dog course turns a photo of your dog into a pattern with every stitch marked by a dot, then teaches you the two stitches to make it. Pet portrait embroidery explains the whole process, start to finish.

Questions people ask

Keep going

• How-to guideHow to embroider eyes for a pet portraitSatin-stitched pupils with a bare highlight: the step that gives a stitched pet its expression.
• How-to guideHow to embroider fur in one color of threadLine-art fur in black thread, stitched root to tip, and when to switch to long and short stitch for realistic fur.
• Stitch guideHow to do a straight stitchOne single stitch, for whiskers, lashes, fur strokes and tiny details.
• Stitch guideHow to do a satin stitchStraight stitches laid side by side to fill small shapes, like eyes and noses.
• How-to guideHow to turn a photo into an embroidery pattern (hand embroidery)Trace a photo into hand-embroidery line art yourself, or let a pattern maker draw it with every stitch marked.
• Gift ideaPet memorial embroidery: stitch a keepsake of your dogA gentle guide to stitching a memorial portrait of your dog, from an old photo to the words beside it.
• How-to guidePet portrait embroidery: how to stitch your own dogThe whole process, from choosing the photo to finishing the back of the hoop, for a first hand-embroidered pet portrait.
• Free toolThe free 3D Stitch SimulatorPractice back stitch and satin stitch on a 3D hoop you can turn, zoom and flip.