
Date Completed: August 2026
Design: Lord Libidan
Count: 20
Canvas: Black
Colours: 7
Pop Culture: Japan & Watches
Considering the size of this cross stitch, it sure took a long time to stitch!
But without spoiling the story, let’s go back to the start; with me scrolling on Instagram.
One of my favorite cross stitchers is ksclark, another male cross stitcher who mostly stitches on vinyl fabric. Specifically, he tends to stitch a lot of wrestling belts.
Now, this isn’t my interest at all, but I’m always in love with the concept. So I thought I would take on his style for a cross stitch.
What I didn’t realise is that at the same time, he was kind of taking on my style of 3D cross stitch, making his own N64 cartridge:

However, I was unaware of this.
I looked at what he was doing and decided that maybe I should combine it with another cross stitch of mine, my Last Of Us cross stitch watch. This was a great cross stitch at the time, but there were problems;
- It was overly large
- The strap was felt (not useful for wearing
- It didn’t look enough like a real watch
So, I went into the pattern phase!
I quickly ruled out vinyl aida, which is what ksclark uses, and went for standard aida. But in order to get the look and the scale I wanted, I needed to source 20 count!
Thankfully I found some without having to resort to dying my own aida again, and scaled my second favorite watch, the Casio F-91W to fit perfectly.

However, when stitching, I quickly finished off the black, the colors, and just needed one more dark grey to complete it.
And then I fell out of love with DMC 3799.
I’ve used this thread in the past a lot, but for this project, it just wasn’t dark enough.
This led me onto a whole process of finding a darker DMC dark grey thread, leading me to Cosmo’s 601. However getting hold of the brand in the UK can be a challenge, so for the first time in a long time, I had to use a store not on my list of great cross stitch stores.
And let’s just say there is a reason it wasn’t included in the list!
After a long old time, three deliveries, and half a dozen tracking codes, I finally got the threads I needed and could complete my cross stitch!

I’m personally very happy with this one, and I think it would be a fine addition to ksclark’s collection of belts!
Happy stitching,
Lord Libidan
Look through the back catalog of Lord Libidan’s Cross Stitch




To get a darker gray next time, you may want to combine 2 different gray strands – the too light and one slightly too dark strand from your stash – to form a new color.
It’s weird, I’m not a massive fan of blending threads!