Review: Pokemon Cross Stitch

It doesn’t seem like the popularity of Pokemon is slowing down, and it’s always fun to stitch characters from pop culture as gifts or for yourself if that’s a fandom you belong to. My daughter never got into Pokemon, but her best friend loves it, so when I saw Pokemon Cross Stitch from Maria Diaz I wanted to check it out.

The book includes 54 patterns for different Pokemon characters, though some projects have more than one Pokemon in them and some are repeated. Pikachu, for example, is in eight of the projects, with Eevee; Piplup; Scorbunny; Cramorant; Pichu and Raichu; Grooky; Sobble; and by itself.

You’re likely to find a favorite in this collection since there are so many patterns.

Each project includes a full-color chart, floss color charts and a skill rating between 1 and 3 Pokeballs. The first 20 projects in the book are also shown fully stitches, while the rest are just shown in chart form. There are also cute illustrations of the characters in each piece, and a little fun fact about them.

A section on cross stitch basics covers materials, how to use a hoop, how to keep the edges of your work from fraying, how to find the center of your fabric and how to read patterns and make different stitches, among other things.

If you’ve never stitched before you might want a little more basic how-to information than this book provides, but it would also be a fun gift for someone who likes Pokemon who you might be trying to get interested in starting cross stitch (or who might already have an interest in cross stitch).

About the book: 112 pages, paperback, 54 patterns. Published 2023 by David and Charles. Suggested retail price $19.99.

And if you’re looking for more Poekmon cross stitch patterns, check out this roundup of Pokemon cross stitch I did a long time ago!

Next Pattern:

30 Bookmarks To Cross Stitch For Kids

A while back I made a little rainbow cross stitch pattern and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it, so I turned it into a patch. My idea was that it could be used on a jacket or backpack, or you could add a pin to the back and wear it temporarily on a shirt or elsewhere.

But what if you want to make your design more permanent? Is it possible to turn a piece of cross stitch into an iron-on design?

It turns out yes, it is, and Sirious Stitches has done it so I didn’t have to try to figure it out on my own.

The way they did it was by using HeatnBond, an iron-on adhesive that attaches fabrics without sewing. There was still sewing involved to finish the edges of the cross stitch fabric and make it look like a purchased patch. The post shows how to do this by hand or with your sewing machine. (I just did blanket stitch edging on mine, which doesn’t look like a “real” patch but is also a lot faster.)

Once you have the patch prepared it’s a pretty easy matter of using the fusible adhesive to the back of the patch so you can then iron it onto whatever jacket, pair of jeans, bag or whatever else you might want to add it to.

I guess I’m a little paranoid about the washability of cross stitch projects, though you could hand wash anything with an iron-on cross stitch patch as you might need to with a purchased iron-on patch, anyway. But this does look really cool and is a great option if you know you want to permanently add a cross stitch patch to a garment of bag.

Get the full tutorial over at Sirious Stitches. Would you add an iron-on cross stitch patch to something? I’d love to hear what you would use this technique for!

[Photo: Sirious Stitches]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?