When I was a child in the 80s, there was an old picture book at the public library. It had no text, but it took place in a kind of fairy tale castle on some other planet. If I remember correctly, each scene followed two children as they explored the castle. They may have been following a piece of yarn that eventually led them to where their mother sat knitting in one of the castle rooms or towers. There may have been a sort of robotic-looking cat playing with the yarn at some point. I remember the artwork as being full color paintings like you find with 1960s scifi book covers or movie posters.
Is it Zathura?
Thanks for guessing, but no. The book I have in mind is older. I first saw it in the late 1980s, and I remember thinking at the time that it appeared to be old. It could have easily been from the 1960s or 1970s.