2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #53 - Cobweb Tree by Urban Stitches

I think this is the first pattern by Urban Stitches in this epic year of starts. I still have the massive Starry Night to catch up on, and the pattern is still being released, 3 weeks a month. We get one week off from the pattern release to catch up. I was doing pretty well until I got distracted by other pretty charts. 

So back to the land of backstitch we go with today's start. Eventually the pattern will look something like this:

I know, white on black, not the easiest as our eyes get older, but in general I usually do okay. That seems to be the case so far, and I love how gorgeous this is, but wow, theres's a lot of stitches!

This is after 2 nights of work:

Cobweb Tree by Urban Stitches

Stitched 1 over 2 on black 28ct? evenweave

with DMC perle 12 in B5200

Pay no attention to the specialty cat hair fibre on this project either. :) So 2 nights only got me this much, but it is beautiful and I'll be happy to work on it with good light when I have lots of time. 

Hope everyone had a good few days!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #52 - I Can Drive a Stick by Lizzie Kate

Time for another Lizzie Kate! And another fun saying. Her lettering is so much fun to do. I think I actually have 2 copies of this chart, so clearly I like it. 

I found a fun fabric to use in my Chromatic Alchemy stash, and dug out some Gentle Art threads to stitch it instead of just DMC 310. I had a busy weekend, but also needed some relaxation, so managed to get this done over 2 days of stitching. 

I Can Drive A Stick by Lizzie Kate

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct Helikonios by Chromatic Alchemy 

with The Gentle Art Sampler Threads in Soot

Clearly Mega Maynia has made me reach for smaller projects. This was another fun finish. At some point I need to track my finishes and WIPs, but no time for that yet, too much stitching to do!

Hope you've all had good stitching days!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #51 - Christmas Motif Sampler by JBW Designs

Another repeat designer! This is the third design that I've worked on by JBW, and like the other 2, this one is also a finish. This time I pulled out Christmas Motif Sampler, and the chart looks like this:

I had one more of the Zweigart cloths that I used for the reindeer, and thought this chart would fit well on it as well. Here's my finish!

Christmas Motif Sampler by JBW Designs

stitched 1 full strand over 2 on 18ct Zweigart Tannenbaum

with Silks4U PR111

This was another fun stitch. I enjoyed this one also, and only being one colour means it wasn't very complicated and was more relaxing on my brain. I'm glad I managed to actual count correctly this time and the pattern seems to be perfectly centered. 

Again, this one just needs some interface or other backing and some ironing and it will be complete. Hopefully I'll manage that before Christmas and then I'll have 2 nice mats for either gifts or decoration. 

I hope you've all had some good stitching days!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #50 - Unwrap the Joy by Lizzie Kate

I think this is my 3rd Lizzie Kate design in this year of starts. I have a fair few, since they're usually not too expensive and deceptively small, so it seems like you can stitch lots of them. I probably have more to go in the pile? And here we are at the halfway mark! 

The big 50th start is kind of a milestone, but since I started so many larger projects last month, I decided to just keep going. Maybe the 100th start will be something special? We'll see when we get there. 

Eventually this one will look something like this:

Going through my fabric stash is always interesting, like why do I have so many shades of blue and green and not many neutrals? Obviously I tend to buy those colours because they're my favourites, but there's only so many charts that work on those colours. I did find a scrap of fiddler's cloth (I think) and decided to work one over one since 2 over 2 seemed a little weird. Possibly only because I'm used to evenweave. 

Here's my progress photo:

Unwrap the Joy by Lizzie Kate

stitched 1 over 1 on 20ct? fiddler's cloth

with DMC as charted mostly

The beard is charted in Wisper, but that doesn't really work on this small of a count, so I went with DMC 3865 for the beard and sideburns, then B5200 for the cuffs and faint snowflakes. I worked on this a fair bit and only managed this much of it, but it's a decent start. 

Definitely not my favourite fabric and I should have chosen maybe blue for the snowflakes, but it's fine for now and I'll get it finished some time. 

Hope you've all had a good day or two of stitching!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #49 - Moose Be Love by Designs by Lisa

What was I saying about more Designs by Lisa charts? :) Here's another one!

I think this might be a gift for my cousin and her spouse. I usually stay with them when I visit my hometown and he loves moose. They even have a big metal moose head sculpture. Much better than an actual moose head. My undergrad had one, so weird. 

My Chromatic Alchemy FOTM stash is pretty vast, and I think I found the perfect outdoor type fabric for this one. Here's my start: 

Moose Be Love by Designs by Lisa

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct Aventurine by Chromatic Alchemy

with DMC threads as charted

I'm debating about putting their wedding date on this somewhere, but haven't decided if it fits or not. Maybe in tiny backstitch underneath? I like the dimensions of it, so didn't want to expand the border, but haven't decided what I want to do yet. There's still time! 

I hope you've had some good stitching days, and suggestions always welcome!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #48 - If Nothing Ever Changed by Designs by Lisa

I thought I had already posted about this chart, so sorry there was a longer gap than usual for the smaller starts. I think this is my first Designs by Lisa chart in this group of starts, but I have a few more in the offing. She's got some very fun designs, and they're generally not very big, which is helpful right now. 

Here's the cover of the chart:

And although it has some specialty threads listed for colours, I didn't have any of them, so chose a different variegated thread to work the border and lettering. I managed a decent start so far:

If Nothing Ever Changed by Designs by Lisa

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct Meredith by Chromatic Alchemy

with Jodyri and DD threads so far

I do have an error I need to pick out. If you're looking closely, the little loops on the right side are not matched on the left. I need to pick out the outermost backstitch row, although I'm fairly sure I was stitching both somewhat together, so probably both vertical rows, and figure out the right placement for the loops. It won't be too much effort to unpick that. That's partly why I left a hanging thread, I realized I'd have to frog a bunch there, so didn't want to stitch any farther with the thread I'd need to remove anyway! 

I made another counting error, but I don't think it will show up, so I won't mention where it is. It was far enough back I wasn't about to undo everything, and I believe I figured out how to make it work without having to frog all the way from the top. 

I'm looking forward to getting back to this and determining what colours I might use for the butterfly. 

Hopefully you've all had good stitching weeks!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #47 - Love is Best by Lizzie Kate

Time for another Lizzie Kate start! I have several of her patterns, as I'm sure many of us do. Most of them are smallish, although this one had some decent stitching to put into it. 

Here's the cover photo:

And I jumped at another chance to pull out some of my stash threads and fabric. I don't remember what scrap fabric this is, but very likely Chromatic Alchemy since I was in her FOTM club for many years. 

I debated a few colour choices, as well as how long I wanted to have this out. In the end I stuck with it till I had finished it. It was a few nights of stitching to complete and I'm happy with the finish. 

Love is Best by Lizzie Kate

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct evenweave unk name

with WDW Crepe Myrtle and Cylcamen, Jodyri Over the Rainbow and Carrie's Creations Bliss

I think most of the colours are fairly obvious, but for the CC Bliss, I fussy-stitched and fussy-cut so the colours were more aligned than they are in the actual thread. The swirl near the bottom is stitched with Bliss as it is on the skein, so that's how the colours would normally work together in the variegated thread. 

I didn't intend for the interesting colour pattern that resulted in the largest heart, that just happened as I stitched along in my normal 4x4 way of stitching with variegated thread. 

The end result is 4x6ish inches in size, so a little large for a card, but maybe a box top, etc? I haven't figured out what to do yet, but it's a finish!

I hope you've all been having a good weekend and a good start to the week. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch