2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #94 - Predator by Oh My Stitches Shop

Another good movie series, and an enjoyable adversary for the most part. Unlike Alien, Predator has some intelligence besides propagation, so the movies tend to be more interesting from that aspect. There's also some books about the Predator culture and I read a series of short stories that were interesting. It was about the Predator species visiting Earth in different timelines and how each dealt with the alien element. The Viking one was most memorable. 

Again, sorry for the blurry photo, but this is what I have. For anyone who hasn't seen the Predator films, this is what they look like for most of them:

There is a very strange looking face underneath the mask, but you can look that up if you're interested. I don't want to shock anyone that's not ready for that kind of disturbing image. 

I managed a little more stitching into this one, so you can see the central character emerge:

Predator by Oh My Stitches Shop

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct white Monaco

with DMC 310 so far

There will be a lot of stitching in these, so potentially I can go colour by colour to see if that's easier. These are the first 2 projects I've tried to stitch using Markup R-XP and it seems to be working well. I kept hearing about people trying it on FlossTube and I thought I'd give it a try. They've been saying it's easier to get paper patterns into Markup than it is in Pattern Keeper, so I figured I'd try it out. Another option if you've been looking for something for paper patterns. 

Hope it's been a good stitching day for you!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #93 - Alien by Oh My Stitches Shop

I've been a fan of this series, mostly the first movie and some of the more recent ones, definitely not Aliens, the second movie, that was not a good film to follow the first one. 

Sorry these are blurry, but it's the only photo I could find without showing the chart. Today's post is about the top left one, the xenomorph from the Alien movie and book franchise. I enjoy the books as well, and one of the best posts about the Alien movie I've ever seen was:

Hopefully I'm not spoiling anything for anyone with that! It's a good movie, very suspenseful, and because of budget issues, there's not a lot of music, which helps build the tension. Plus you don't see the Alien a lot, again, budget issues. 

I stuck with plain white Monaco for this one since it will be fully stitched. 

Alien by Oh My Stitches Shop

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct white Monaco

with DMC 310 so far

Since I've been reorganizing, some of my threads are more difficult to get to, but I still have my cone of 310 in a prominent place, so easy to get a few threadlengths into this one for a decent start. 

Hope you've all had good stitching days!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #92 - Blue Dot Carl Sagan by Taylor and Cromwell

This chart also piqued my interest while I was going through my patterns. It's a great quote by Carl Sagan and always timely as well. 

I debated a bit on the fabric and threads, and finally found some only to realize my fabric was too small. Good thing I had doublechecked the size! So, I had to search for something else. I like the idea of having it seem like space, so I decided to try a dark fabric with some opalescence. And I ended up starting this twice:

This was the first start. I tried 2 over 2 with the letters, but I think they're more difficult to read, so I started it again with only one thread:

Blue Dot by Taylor and Cromwell

stitched 1 over 2 on 28ct Nox by Chromatic Alchemy

with Silks4U threads

I'm still not 100% sure this is the right combo, so I decided on one thread only for now. I had already tossed a couple threads from the first attempt, so this was enough stitching on this project for today. I'll have to decide if it's worth adjusting the fabric and threads again or continuing on as it is. Thoughts always welcome!

Hope your stitching had less complications!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch 

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #91 - Blackwork in Blue by Elizabeth Almond and Lakeside Needlecraft

Another smaller start today! I went through what I had remaining from the projects I'd picked out last year and a fair few of them were pretty big, so I had a look through my digital files to see if anything else caught my interest, and happened to be a bit smaller. I came across this one, which was a free SAL from Lakeside Needlecraft. 

The next decision was what fabric to use and if I wanted to keep the colours the same. I decided to keep the palette similar and chose a light blue/grey neutral from my fabric stash. I also found some of the Silks4U threads I had from advent calendars would work, and managed a decent start:

Blackwork in Blue by Elizabeth Almond

stitched 2 over 2 and 1 over 2 as charted on 28ct Bryophyte by Chromatic Alchemy

with Silks4U threads

Choosing fabric was a bit of a challenge with my new "helper" that we're fostering for a friend going through medical issues. 

Bandit lives up to his name, and is generally mischievous while awake. He is more cuddly than our other cats, but also more destructive. He is still only a little over a year old though, so the kitten is strong in him. 

Hope you've all had a good stitching day and have less destructive helpers!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #90 - Who Dunnit by Bothy Threads

Another kit from my visit to Paine Free Crafts! This was a new one for me, I'd never seen this cut-thru before. I've always been tempted since they look so fun, but when I saw this one, it was a must.

Again, it's all kitted up with threads, fabric and a needle:

I've had a lot going on, so I didn't get much started, but I did get a few colours into it: 

Who Dunnit by Bothy Threads

stitched 2 over 2 on kit fabric

with kit threads

I think I'll likely do one thread of one colour at a time to get it all filled in. I know there's a lot of backstitch in these, so I'll maybe get a bunch of colour in, then do some of the backstitch, etc. 

I really love the idea of this one since my favourite book genre is murder mysteries. I read all the Agatha Christie books when I was young and that clearly got me hooked. I read fantasy and sci-fi as well, but especially enjoy a good murder mystery. 

For modern murder mysteries, I've been enjoying the Richard Osman books, both the Thursday Murder Club and We Solve Murders. There's lots of other good ones, but that would be my top recommendation. I enjoy how he writes characters. They're never one-dimensional, you get to know the character without necessarily reading "He had brown hair and was a bit over 6 feet", etc. 

Hope it's been a good stitching day for everyone!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #89 - Winter Wishes Santa by Jim Shore and Mill Hill

This week has gotten away from me a bit, but I do have some stitching to share. First off is another one of the kits I picked up from a LNS closing. 

I have a few of these Santas, and the other projects I'd picked out last year for the 100 starts weren't calling to me, so I thought I'd give this one a go. It's been a while since I've worked on a Mill Hill, and I still enjoy them. Here's one whole thread length:

Winter Wishes Santa by Jim Shore/Mill

stitched 3 over 1 on 14ct perforated paper

with kit threads

Not a ton of progress, but that's kind of how this week has been. I have a few other starts to post, and still considering that #100. I think like Leonore said, something special would be a good idea, and the Chatelaine definitely would fit that bill. This is the photo of it, if you haven't seen it before. 

It's somewhat intimidating. I was ready to start it initially, but had to wait quite a while for my thread pack. The threads are often backordered, etc. I think I even waited on the beads for now because European cross stitch mentioned they can take a while. I still like the look, although I'm still debating if there's someway to change the brick colour to yellow. My Grandma had a yellow brick house, and this is something I wanted to stitch in her memory. I still have some time to debate it. 

Hope you've all had good stitching days!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #88 - The Menagerie: Highlander by Bothy Threads

Of course I had to buy something from Paine Free Crafts while I was there. I wanted to find something I couldn't easily get here in North America, and this Bothy Threads kit definitely fit the bill!

So cute, plus I don't have anything similar to it. I hadn't come across these box kits from Bothy before. There was a note inside about having all recyclable packaging, so this is maybe a new thing. Of course this is the first project I started, but it did take me a few days to acclimate back to North America. 

Here's what it looks like inside the box:

And today I had a fair bit of time to stitch and got a few different colours in. I was starting with just one, but I think it will be easier to stitch one threadlength at a time with whichever colour is easiest to get to. The aida is really beautiful, and 14count, so easy enough to stitch on. Here it is so far:

The Menagerie: Highlander by Bothy Threads

stitched 2 over 1 on 14ct kit printed aida

with kit threads

I think that's 3 or 4 different oranges in there already, so there's going to be a lot of that colour. The yellow was good to sort of set up the outline. I don't know if you can see the Nurge hoop, but I tried that out. It wasn't as tight as my Qsnaps, so not sure if I set it up correctly. I'll try again and see. 

Really enjoying this one, although you have to pay attention to the symbols. It's a paper chart, so a little more work. Someone mentioned you can put paper charts in Markup R-XP, so I might have to give that a try and see if I can use it for some of these projects. 

I hope you've all had good stitching days!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch