The Rise Of AI Cross Stitch Patterns

This post was originally in XStitch Magazine Issue 23: Myths & Legends (2022), and has been adapted for the blog. Opinions may now be outdated.

When it comes to cross stitch and myths; there aren’t any. In fact, there really aren’t many legends either. There are some questions that still persist through the years that go ‘unanswered’ but they’re all fully answered.
Like “Do DMC discontinue threads?”; no, but they stop making them which is the same thing.
Or “Did Catherine of Aragon really bring cross stitch to the western world?”; also no, she brought embroidery from Spain to Britain, and cross stitch developed from that.

There are a few legends though, legends that are mostly lies we tell ourselves; like the cross stitch gods, and sacrificing your firstborn child stopping you from ever miscounting (OK, I made that one up). But that doesn’t mean there won’t be more myths and legends in the future though.

I want to talk about something that interests me a lot; robots! Specifically of the cross stitch kid. In a fairly recent post on my site I spent time delving into the world of automatic cross stitch robots, that can stitch any pattern in a matter of minutes; taking away the need for anyone to stitch at all!
In reality, whilst these machines do exist, their purpose and skill is limited. They can’t stitch on the aida holes, they often manage to get askew when stitching, you can see it’s done by a robot on the back, and it’s not even a properly counted cross stitch embroidery. But for PR stunts like the well-known IKEA cross stitch advert, they have their purposes. But by and large; no one has to fear these robots, even if they do improve over time.

 
But there is another type of robot that many in the art world have been heavily interested in; AI.

For those who don’t know, a new breed of AI robots can create images in any style based on the words you feed them. Many artists are worried that AI will replace them as this technology improves.
But what does it mean for the cross stitch world?

For many, the concept of creating images for cross stitch is rather niche; but this magazine, and every cross stitch store out there create hundreds of images a day for patterns. So let’s take a journey and see if AI can replace the cross stitch designer!

To start; I used Dall-E 2 OpenAI and asked them to come up with a counted cross stitch pattern for a pirate ship.

 
Oh. Well, it appears in its current state, no one has to worry. But that doesn’t mean AI isn’t at least useful for cross stitch. By using the tool in a clever way, we can make the program produce items that designers can use as inspiration, or even bases for their own designs.
By being a bit more specific about what you want, you can get a list of images that aren’t great but can be used for inspiration.

 
As a result, I honestly think that right now, AI generated artwork can massively help the cross stitch world, and designers in particular.
Yes; people will abuse it and stitchers will have to become aware of spotting these AI images, but overall I think cross stitch can really benefit from AI.

But that’s not what I’m here for. I’m here for full-on AI cross stitch pattern generation!
I’ll be frank, this took some effort, but in short, I created a program and searched Etsy for the most popular search terms related to ‘cross stitch patterns’. I then created a program that pulls these into a word developer that forms other words around these to make something Dall-E 2 could understand. I then made it import the words, and pull off the first image. I then wrote a simple program to import this image directly into an image editing software and replace the images with true ‘pixels’. This was then imported into a cross stitch program on Mac that added colors and a grid.

That was a lot of words, so I apologise, but the whole process ran in 3 minutes, and below you’ll see what AI can really do. And whilst I don’t intend to use this program for anything more than a fun experiment, it won’t be long until a tool like this will be released upon the cross stitch world; and patterns like these will enter the hands of cross stitchers everywhere.

Maybe we should fear AI…

I present; the first official, not touched by human hands cross stitch pattern, with the theme, image creation, image reworking, and pattern making all controlled by AI:

 

The State of AI Cross Stitch in 2025

A lot has happened since 2022, and so I thought I would post an update to this piece three years later.
As with many technologies, things move forward, and not always for the better.

There are now specific AI for cross stitch, ones that can take patterns designed by artists and rework sections. Many designers have seen their work stolen and sold on sites like Temu where copyright is ignored. I’ve seen my own epic pokemon cross stitch patterns be stolen, pushed through AI, and sold as printed kits from China.
Copyright and cross stitch has always been a hot topic, but the AI era brings with it serious issues.
And this isn’t to mention the possible implications on content and how AI comes about its designs; stealing works from designers and repurposing them without attribution. From a copyright angle alone, I’m concerned.

But the biggest issue for me has to be that of AI use in designing cross stitch. In this post, I talk about how AI-generated artwork can help you create designs, offering designers, in particular, the task of putting something together. And well, this is kind of true, it’s also one of the biggest issues in the hobby right now.
AI artwork amalgamates, it draws understanding of designs from across the internet and spits out something that is “average”. And this is my biggest concern.
I’ve seen the worlds of marketing and AI, and seen that individuality is losing out to AI. And yes, it’s easy to produce some AI content for sites like Etsy that aren’t necessarily breaking copyright, it’s AI slop.

So whilst AI is here to stay, support your real cross stitch designers!

Happy stitching,
Lord Libidan