Cross stitch in carpets

There can be very few people (women anyhow) who as children did not make a cross stitch mat for a Christmas present. Personally I have a vivid recollection of my first effort at embroidery at a kindergarten.

This was a kettle holder in cross stitch worked in what I now realise to have been a peculiarly offensive combination of bright pink and green wool and which was received by my mother with tactful exclamations of gratitude and admiration.

Nearly everybody has a general knowledge of the working of cross stitch and realises that it is formed by two sloping stitches crossing one another at right angles and each covering one or more intersections of the canvas bars.