Pokemon Cross Stitch is an official craft book that helps you bring your favourite Pokemon to life with over 50 cute patterns. I finally got around to trying a pattern from my copy so here’s a look at the book and how my project turned out.
Pokemon Cross Stitch was published in Summer 2023 and I got a copy for Christmas. I felt like doing some stitching recently so finally dug it out and had a look through. I’ve been a Pokemon fan since Red & Blue and a keen cross stitcher for quite a few years so it seemed like a perfect match. This is an official book and part of the craft series with crochet, knitting and origami books too. Designer Maria Diaz has created the patterns and it includes 50 full size charts featuring 20 different Pokemon.
The book starts with a quite in-depth how-to section covering everything from getting started to finishing & framing, including how to read the charts and create all the stitches. Cross stitch is really easy to pick up and there are charts for all skill levels but they do all require half/quarter stitches and backstitch outlines, so it’s not maybe ideal for a total beginner.
Pikachu is the star of the book and features in multiple patterns but there’s a good mix of Pokemon including starters from across the eras, Eevee and all the Eeveelutions and popular favourites like Gengar, Slowpoke and Jigglypuff. Many charts have groups of characters like all evolutions or game starters or matching characters like Plusle & Minun and Espeon & Umbreon. Most of the patterns are only shown as charts but there are enough finished pieces through the book to give you an idea of how they will all look.
It took me a while to choose a pattern to stitch and I didn’t even realise it was the cover project until much later! On first glance, it’s a really cute image of Pikachu & Piplup but it also has an interesting design where the background Pokeballs are the same colours as the characters and it’s only when you add the black outline that they become separate elements. This looked like a new challenge and something different to try.
You can see already how much the Pokeball and Pikachu are blended together into one colour block. It makes it fast to stitch but a little more repetitive without changing colours often. As usual, I took a photo of the chart and crossed off lines in Procreate on my iPad to keep track of my progress as otherwise it’s easy to forget the count.
I’m a fairly experienced cross stitcher but this was my first time using half and quarter stitches (you can see these in the eyes and the centre and edges of the Pokeball). I have to say, I do not like them! What makes cross stitch so easy and relaxing is having the grid to keep you right – getting your needle in halfway between holes is much trickier and quite hard on the eyes. I’m also not convinced they were really needed. It helps with small details like the eyes, and for blending colours together better, but there were way too many around the edges.
The photo above has most of the pattern completed but without the black outline, it doesn’t look very good so you definitely can’t think about skipping the backstitching. Newsletter subscribers (it’s free!) know that I was not very confident about finishing this in time for Pokemon Day but the backstitching was much faster than I expected. This is done with one strand of thread and creates lines around the edge – or across – the full stitches.
And here’s the finished piece! The outline makes a huge difference and it looks very professional. I did enjoy making this and I’m happy to have learned some new tricks but I’m not sure I like this style. Relying so much on half/quarter stitches and backstitch outlines feels like trying to recreate the artwork as closely as possible, rather than making a feature of the look and quirks of cross stitch, or finding a balance where characters can be simplified or enlarged to use whole stitches. Parts of Piplup’s eyes have 4 quarter stitches making up a single cross stitch or even 6 half stitches for a row of 3! That just feels overly complicated.
Pokemon Cross Stitch is a well made and thorough book but I would probably only recommend it if you love this style and are quite experienced. I wish there had been a bit more of a mix of designs with maybe some pixel art, text designs, borders etc. for variety. Even the biggest Pokemon fan is unlikely to stitch more than a handful of the projects but with the price having dropped a lot since publication, it’s still good value.
Pokemon Cross Stitch is out now in paperback only, published by David & Charles and available to buy in stores and online including Amazon (UK/US) or Bookshop (UK/US) which supports independent bookshops near you. I also saw they released a cheaper kit version last year, which includes a shorter version of the book along with enough aida fabric and floss for 2 projects and a needle and hoop. It’s available at all the shops above.
This is not a sponsored review but we love reviewing cute craft books if you have one coming out!
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