Epic Pokemon Cross Stitch
I was first exposed to cross stitch back in 3rd grade thanks to a program called Fab Friday. Every 6 weeks students got to sign up for an elective and learn something new. Classes ranged from bird watching and origami, to building popsicle bridges and theater. One of these classes happened to be cross stitch. Once the 2020 COVID pandemic hit and I was stuck inside, I was inspired to begin stitching again. A few projects later, I came across something that inspired me as much as it feared me: the Epic Pokemon Cross Stitch.
This project is a tapestry of the 101 first generation of Pokemon. 105 colors of thread. 115,200 stitches. A pattern so large it spans 30 printed pages. After learning of its existence, I spent the next few months thinking "Wow, wouldn't that be cool to do?". I'm not quite sure what came over me, but something flipped and as they say "one day" turned to "day one".
Preparing to Stitch
For any cross stitch project you need 4 items:
- A pattern to make
- Floss
- Needles
- Aida Fabric
Pattern
Thankfully, the pattern itself is free for anyone to use thanks to Lord Libidan. The site provides links to huge patterns for generations 1 - 8. It would be nice to do the first three generations, but we'll see how I feel once the first one is done. This pattern includes the number of stitches, the specific colors of thread I need, and estimates of the finished size of the piece.
Needles
I initially bought some size 26 needles to work on my pattern, but after stitching for a few weeks, I realized they worked but were slightly too big. This prevented me from stitching well when multiple strands were on a single stitch hole. The #26 needles were replaced with #28 needles and all was correct.
Thread
Anyone who's tried to buy floss from a box store like Michael's or JOANN knows that its...tenuous. Rather than hunting for over a hundred different colors in plastic bins, I went online. After searching for a few sites, I landed on 123stitch. This site was the winner because they have a function where you can upload a list of DMC color codes to generate an order. Definitely a time saver when working with a lot of different colors.
As excited as I was to stitch, after taking inventory I realized a single color was missing! I emailed support for 123stitch, and they had my issue resolved and my missing color sent for free. I received it a few days later, and I was ready to begin!
Fabric
Okay. So this thing is big. At around 2.5 feet wide and 4 feet tall, I needed to order fabric online. When I placed my order for floss from 123stitch, I also ordered a 36x43 18 count Aida fabric. My plan was to grid the fabric myself using some metallic thread so that every 10x10 square on the pattern was mapped out and I could reference my pattern easier.
After fighting with it for an hour and only completing a few rows and columns, I gave up. There's a solution for this: pre-gridded fabric. After a bit of searching, I came across a fabric seller on Etsy called DyeingForCrossStitch. This fabric is pre-gridded with lines that wash out with warm water. It's to be determined how effective washing them out will be, but I've already made peace with the possibility of these lines staying behind my pattern when it's complete.
Tracking My Progress
With so many stitches to keep track of, I wanted something easier than crossing off squares on a printed PDF. There are a variety of mobile apps for cross stitching, but the only one that could convert my PDF to a digital pattern automatically was PatternKeeper. Unfortunately, this is only available for Android at the time of writing, so I gave in and bought a tablet specifically for cross stitching. A worthy investment given how crucial this app is to completing this multi-year project.
While stitching, PatternKeeper gives some basic completion metrics like overall percentage done, and how many stitches of each color are left. However, I wanted something a little more fine-grained. So I made a spreadsheet!
On it, I track a list of dates and how many stitches were complete on those days. Using the first day I started stitching, and some approximations, I'm able to track when I'm estimated to complete the project. This sheet has been a source of motivation for me because the more stitches I do in day, the higher my average stitches per day goes, and the closer my completion date comes. Watching that date move forward from December 2028 to January 2028 has been incredibly satisfying.
But why stop there?
If there's anything I love doing, its making random websites for myself. So that's what I did! Enter Epic Pokemon Cross Stitch. Modeled after the game UI for Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen that the sprites come from, this site gives some quick stats on the state of the project and has visuals for which Pokemon I've "caught". I plan to add some more interactive elements to the site in the future, but for now, it serves as a quick way to see how far along I am.
Current & Future State
As of March 2024, I'm about 18% done with the piece. I've been working on it for almost a year, and according to my estimations will be done sometime in 2028. I'm excited to see how this evolves over time and takes me through these next few years. I'll update this post with more in-progress photos over time, but if you want to follow along with me, check out my Instagram story collection.
Wish me luck!