June 2026 Stitching/Crafting Update

Things have been a little busy life-wise, but there is still stitching and knitting happening! In fact, there's been a knitting finish. 

Cold Snap by Angeline Webb 

knit with 3.5mm needles 

using Great Adirondack Yarn Co Cotton DK in Hydrangea

I realize I gave no perspective on this one, but it's a little over a meter long. There's a buttonhole so you can sew on a button and use it as a shawl instead of a scarf. I haven't done that yet, since I think my Mom would like it if I could use one of her mother's button collection for it. It's a late birthday present for Mom, her birthday was in June, but I didn't finish it in time. 

I also managed a couple dishcloths. I'm still keeping to my "finish one project, make a dishcloth" idea since I have so much dishcloth yarn to use up. It's an easy gift, and I managed to get two out of the leftover red yarn I had, and passed those on to friends. 

Seed Stitch dishcloth

Cotton yarn, not sure which brand

I have some ideas for my next knitting project, but haven't started anything new yet. There's a few WIPs hanging around that I've worked on, one is a sock tube, so it just needs more and more knitting until the tube is complete. I think I'd like to get my swift and winder out to make a cake instead of winding my yarn my hand. Sometimes I'm too impatient or not at home, so I have to wind it myself because I don't want to wait. But the yarn twists less in a cake, so it is a good idea to take the time. 

Hope it's been a good month for everyone!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #58 - Tails by Makibird

And the last video game sprite is Sonic's friend, sidekick, companion Tails! So called because he has 2 tails and can kind of hover like a helicopter. I hadn't played any of the newer games with Tails, only the original Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis. DD has played some though, and watched the TV shows. I think Shadow is her favourite character, but possibly Tails is a close second. 

Here's the finish:

Tails by Makibird

stitched 2 over 1 on 14ct silver perforated paper

with DMC as charted

This one I made more mistakes than the other 2 combined. I also "finished" 3 colours, since I was stitching all of one colour before switching to the next, etc. and had to go back and put in extra stitches for 3 of the colours. But it's a fun finish and although it can take a bit to see the character, if you follow the darker outline, you can make him out. 

After all the colour changes I might be up for some more monochrome, but I'll have to see what calls to me. I'm at the point where a lot of the charts I've pulled are fine, I'd like to start them, but they don't have the same pull that some of the early starts did. It's possible I'm up for a smaller full coverage project, we'll see how the workday treats me, etc. 

I hope you've all had a good day of stitching!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #57 - Sonic the Hedgehog by Makibird

If you weren't familiar with yesterday's video game sprite, then maybe today you'll know this one? It's a more common character and tends to show up in lots of places, movies, TV shows and Nintendo video games, despite this being a Sega character originally. 

Without further ado, this is Sonic:

Sonic the Hedgehog by Makibird

stitched 2 over 1 on 14ct silver perforated paper

with DMC as charted

I mixed up one of the blue colours in this one, but I don't think it mattered, so I didn't change it out. The two colours were very similar shades. Again, no need for backstitch with the colour changes, so it turned out pretty well I think, despite my error in the colours. The shoes in particular I like since you can kind of see how the back leg is lifted and the front leg is planted for him to go run or roll off at high speeds. 

Hope you've all had good stitching days, and see you next time for one more sprite!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #56 - Shadow by Makibird

After that large-ish start last time, I felt the need for a few smaller projects, so I pulled out some sprite patterns I've had for ages. I don't believe these are still available, at least the website didn't seem to exist any more. 

If any of you have or do play video games, these next few days should be familiar. First up in my list is Shadow:

Shadow by Makibird

stitched 2 over 1 on 14ct silver perforated paper

with DMC as charted

There's a fair bit of colours in these to give them definition without the backstitch, and they're fairly quick. I think each one took me 2 nights of stitching time. I believe this is the only one I stitched without any frogging. 

I hope you've all had good stitching days!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #55 - Forever & Ever by Cottage Garden Samplings

I suppose you could call me late to the party on these, as they came out a few years ago and many, many people have stitched them. I couldn't decide if I liked them or not really. Then I decided they'd make good pillows and maybe I could make some for my parents. I picked birds that they see often, and decided to start with this one, mostly because I had it about half-kitted up from the LNS I purchased it from. 

My dad's favourite bird is the female cardinal because of the depth of colour it can have, so I wanted to stitch these with the Weeks Dye Works threads they call for. 

I worked on this for a couple days and I've ordered the other threads I need for this one and a couple others, so I'm looking forward to getting back to this at some point. 

Forever & Ever by Cottage Garden Samplings

stitched 2 over 2 on 32ct Lily of the Valley

with Weeks Dye Works as called for

These are definitely not small projects, but the printed chart is massive, and it's been an easy stitch so far. I managed to get a full threadlength in of 3 different colours, plus a little extra of WDW Ivy. 

I'd like to start the others, but I'd also like to have all the threads that I need on hand, so I can be patient. I think I'll pick up something smaller for now. 

Hope it's been a good few days of stitching for you!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #54 - Azure Medallion by Mill Hill

And now for something completely different! Or at least a little different. There's still stitching involved after all. This is the first time I've attempted a full beaded project from Mill Hill. I believe I picked this up from the LNS that was closing in southern Vermont several years ago. 

The tag for sale looks familiar from others from that lot that I picked up a long time ago. This is a great time to start it though, and dare we say, get finished for Christmas? Probably shouldn't jinx it. 

I debated a bit on this after reading over the instructions, and I decided to try and use up all the beads from one bag when I worked on it. There's 3 bags with 2 colours each, so this bag had ice (white) and sapphire. I used a bowl, dumped all the beads into it and ended up using 4 strands of doubled thread to use up all the beads called for from that bag. As is typical for Mill Hills I've done, there are enough beads left to do another 2 or 3 of these I think! 

Here's what 2 colours of beads complete looks like:

Azure Medallion MH21-1912 by Mill Hill

stitched 2 over 1 on perforated paper

with kit white thread and beads

You can definitely see the pattern emerging, so it will look great when complete. This was a few hours of work total, so I don't think a finish would be too difficult to get. 

This kind of made me want to get out other projects to work on, but most of the others aren't fully beaded and something sort of similar with less counting, etc. was where my mind was during that stitching session. So far no changes to my proposed starts besides eliminating a couple that aren't going to be fun to stitch when I actually took time to look at the chart. Too many fractionals, that's my least favourite type of stitching. 

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

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

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