2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #66 - Summer Bliss by Cottage Garden Samplings

This might be the last of these patterns for this year of starts! I can't remember if I have any more of the birds, but I do have some of the animals. 

My mom and Grandma both love orioles, and Grandma had this great peony bush near her walkway at her house. This is another one that has some good memories attached, so I'm looking forward to getting back to this one as well. 

Summer Bliss by Cottage Garden Samplings

stitched 2 over 1 on 14ct Aida, unknown name and designer

with WDW 

I really like how this has stitched up so far. It's fun to get to the words first, that's a change from the other designs. Also getting some of the bird started is fun as well. 

I'm looking forward to getting back to these next year. I think I'll try and finish one at a time, because a few of the WDW threads are shared between patterns. The gold colour in this one only uses that colour for the fill in the letter B, otherwise it's not used any more, but it's in at least one of the other patterns I've started. 

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

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

                                                                                                                                                             

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #65 - In Another City by Lindy Stitches

Today's start is a very fun design. It definitely fits a lot of people I know. I'm going to change up the colours a bit, maybe make it rainbow? 

I used the other bit of fabric that has the blue dots on it in hopes that this pattern will cover the spots. They're fairly light, so I don't think it will detract from the eventual finish. 

In Another City by Lindy Stitches

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct Weeping Wisteria 

with WDW Onyx so far

I'm sharing a larger photo than usual so you can see where the dots are. I think the pattern will cover most of it. If you have any colour ideas, I'm happy to hear them, but still thinking about a rainbow idea. 

I hope you've all had some time to get good stitching in!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #64 - Have Courage by Cottage Garden Samplings

Another familiar pattern for most of you probably, back to Cottage Garden Samplings bird patterns! This is one of the more striking birds that will show up at the feeders in my parents backyard, the rose-breasted grosbeak. My grandma also used to grow beautiful gladiolas, so it's fun to have these two things together in this chart. 

I did manage to get two threadlengths into this one as well, and I feel like that's a decent start for these. There's so much stitching, but not too many colour changes, so you can get decent progress 

Have Courage by Cottage Garden Samplings

stitched 2 over 2 on 32ct Weeping Wisteria limited edition, unknown dyer

with WDW as charted

I had a fat quarter of this fabric, but half of it had dye spots, so I'm thinking I can use that part on a different chart that has more coverage. I think I picked this up in a destash, so I don't remember where it came from. This piece didn't seem to have any of the dye spots, but does have a nice area of green coming in on the right, so it should fit this chart well. 

The next start will be a different designer, but I might have another Cottage Garden one after that. I think I have enough threads that they're all separated out, but possibly not, so I might need to borrow from one project to another. 

They're very fun to work on, and I can see why they became so popular. Now that I've stitched a couple, I understand. I wasn't sure on the art style initially. I have a few of the next series, the woodland animals, so not sure if they'll come out this year or not. We'll see how we go. 

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

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #63 - Promise of Spring by Cottage Garden Samplings

My Weeks Dye Works order from 123 Stitch came in, so it was time to start another one of the Cottage Garden Samplings birds. If you want to see another stitcher working on it, Stitching Noni has put some stitches in hers recently. She mostly shows her progress on her FlossTube. 

I'm still sticking with birds that appear in my parents back garden/yard, and this is a common one:

I managed to put 2 full thread lengths of 2 different colours into this over the past few days. As always, stitching time can be hard to come by, but I'm happy with this start:

Promise of Spring by Cottage Garden Samplings

stitched 2 over 1 on 18ct Polynesium by Chromatic Alchemy

with WDW as charted

I like the idea of sort of outlining the tulips with WDW Charcoal, and hopefully it won't be too difficult to do some fill-in when I get back to this. It's a very fun design; these are really growing on me now. 

Hope you've all had some good stitching time!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #62 - Day 5 Dragonlet by Dragon Dreams

After making Day 3 for Clare, I decided to dig out my old 12 Days of Dragonlets project and started and finished Day 5. I still don't love working on afghan fabric and I'm definitely done for a while again, but it was nice to get another day completed. 

Day 5 Dragonlet by Dragon Dreams

stitched 4 over 2 on afghan fabric

with DMC as charted and Kreinik for the 5

This is a very cute one, and the pattern calls for some Kreinik in the rings, but because I'm using blending filament for the dragon, I decided to keep it simple with DMC as well. 

I'm not sure if I'll pull this out again for Day 6 for another of my 100 starts this year, but it's a possibility. How the afghan works there's a section on the top of the main panel and I'm stitching the first 6 across the top, then the last six will be across the bottom. I don't think I've touched this in over 5 years though, so definitely nice to get some work on it. 

There's a kind of sneak-peek for the end of the month summary too. Day 4 wasn't complete until a few days ago, so that's another finish for this year, but it had been started years ago, so doesn't count for a new start this year. 

I still love how fun these are, but still don't love my fabric choice. However, it will be really cool when it's complete. Some day!

Hope you've all had some good stitching days!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #61 - Day 3 Dragonlet by Dragon Dreams

Time for some deja vu! I stitched this pattern way back in 2016 and had planned to stitch all 12 for one of the Crazy January Challenges. I had this idea to stitch them on afghan fabric and turns out I didn't enjoy that much at the time. However, Clare from Aimetu's is working on some 12 Days of Christmas trees this year, and I thought I'd try and get one stitched up for her. So far this one is my favourite, so I thought I'd stitch it up again. 

Day 3 Dragonlet by Dragon Dreams

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct scrap white Monaco

with DMC as charted

Now I just need to get it mailed in time, so I'm hoping to get that done ASAP. 

This was a fun one, I managed to stitch it up this evening and it was pretty quick. I'm debating about picking up the afghan to work on the other patterns. Maybe just to see if I can get a few of them done despite the fabric. It's one of those UFOs that I'm still a little annoyed about, so it might feel nice to get some of it accomplished! 

Hope you've all had a good weekend!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #60 - Bigfoot Bunch by Plum Street Samplers

I was searching my blog and I think this is the first Plum Street Sampler design I've stitched! That seems odd since she has so many fun patterns, but I suppose the more primitive style isn't my favourite in general, so maybe I just haven't been inspired to start one until now. 

This one is really, really fun. I have a person in mind to gift it too when it's complete, so hopefully that will happen some day. 

This is part of her "stacks" style series and some of them are so creative. This has been my favourite though, so we'll start here. I even bought the CC colours on 123stitch for this one. I debated, but decided I hadn't had to buy anything yet this year for all of these starts, so why not go for it? 

I had a decent start after 2 days of stitching as well:

Bigfoot Bunch by Plum Street Samplers

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct experimental dye by Chromatic Alchemy

with CC colours as charted

There's an interesting aspect to this one, which I'm not sure is visible in the chart photo. You have to stitch some of the Bigfoot faces one over one. The little bigfoot baby on the right side is all one over one. That will be a bit tricky when I get there. There's a separate chart for those parts, plus different faces for the larger sasquatch in the central area. 

I chose this fabric because it reminded me of an X-files episode where Mulder and Scully seemed to have found evidence of Bigfoot/Sasquatch that had such good camouflage they would disappear in the forest. The colours will still stand out enough, but the background reminded me of the ending of that episode. 

Hope you've all had some good stitching days!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch