Four black cats peering over the edge of a shelf. All you see are the ears, the saucer eyes and the whiskers, and above them the tails, which are what tells them apart: one in a zigzag, one curled into a spiral, one bolt upright and the last bent like a question mark. The third one frowns while the others stare wide-eyed, and the one on the right leans out so far it spills past the end of the line.

The shape asks to be hung: 243 x 83 stitches, about 44 by 15 centimetres on 14-count, a long strip that sits oddly inside a frame and comes into its own held between two wooden rods, top and bottom, with a cord to hang it by. If 44 centimetres will not fit where you want it, the same pattern comes to 38 on 16-count and 34 on 18. It is worked in a single thread, black DMC 310, and only a quarter of the cells carry a stitch: all the rest is bare fabric, so the colour you choose is the background of the picture. Whole crosses throughout, no halves and no backstitch, and barely eight isolated stitches in the whole thing, so it runs straight through. One of the quickest in the Collection, and a good first hanging.