Love & A Dog a Cross Stitch Kit by Imaginating

I've made this twice, once with the original fabric, as a present for my sister, and once with DMC marble blue fabric, for myself. It works up very quickly, I did both in about three weeks. The chart is easy to follow, the design is super cute, and I'm happy with the results. Happier with the marble blue than the supplied gray actually. Also, Imaginating does the best charts in the industry, to my thinking, and they are large and clear. I am always very happy with Imaginating. This chart is split over two pages, because it is long, but the join was easy to decipher. Most imaginating charts are all on one side, but not this one. Another nice thing about imaginating kits is that they give you plenty of floss, enough in this case to do most if not all of two iterations of the design. The designer, Gail Bussi, is a favorite of mine, but in general, I love most all Imaginating designers, and the charts and kits are, to my mind, the best in the industry. What I didn't like - there is a mistake, not on the chart but on the model, the dog bowl is shown as brown, when it actually is the gray listed on the chart. I did the brown on my first one, as I thought the chart was wrong, but Imaginating later told me that it was the photographed stitched model that was wrong. This is minor, but there were a lot of 1/4 stitches on the bones, and while they aren't difficult, some people do dislike them. 240 quarter stitches just on the bones. Also, there are quite a few french knots. I don't mind french knots that are free form, or one alone, but they are hard to do on aida (holes can swallow the knots) and since there are five pairs of eyes and one triple line of knots, if you do have trouble doing french knots consistently in a line and always the same size, as I can, this may be offputting. Part of my issue with frenchies is that I work in hand, not in a hoop, so it's hard to have enough hands to hold the fabric taut and do the knot. To me french knots are better free form, on linen, not aida. I ended up doing a comma, after "actually" in my second iteration, rather than the three knots for an ellipsis, because putting three french knots in a row, on aida, in that small space was not worth the trouble. However, this worked up very cute, and I worked it up with no miscounting (typical of imaginating designers and charts, who frequently design samplers with borders and designs that facilitate counting and checking your place) so I am very very happy with the purchase and can recommend it. BTW, the blue I used on the second stitched piece was brighter than in the photo, which looks more gray, but it looks like the original fabric supplied.