December and End of 2025 Wrap-Up

Here it is, the start of 2026 and time to wrap up 2025! I definitely got some finishes and a few new starts, so let's see how the year finished up. 

I'll try and make it obvious which are finishes, what got work, etc. 

1. Amazing Animal Kingdom by Aimee Stewart/HAED - 35802/374500 (9.56%)

2. Canadian Hero by Stitching Jules Designs - 401/53850 (0.74%)

3. Kathleen and Summer by Hannah Lynn/HAED - 550/200000 

4. Universal Monsters B&W by Witchy Stitcher

5. Stocking #3 by Jane Henderson - completed

6. Snowball Fight by Gitta - stitches added

7. Samurai by Fire Wing Designs - completed

8. Believe in the Magic of Christmas by Durene Jones

9. Christmas Birdhouse #1 by Durene Jones - completed

10. Christmas Birdhouse #2 by Durene Jones - completed

11. Stormlight Archive Quotes by Taylor and Cromwell - 8853/13532 (65.42%)

12. Holiday Quaker by Lila's Studio

13. Noel by Bent Creek - completed

14. Normal is Just a Setting on the Washer by Lizzie Kate - completed

15. Pumpkin Patch by Lois Winston

16. Winter Feast by Mill Hill - completed

17. Zelda Cross Stitch 

18. Warm Winter Wishes by Waxing Moon Designs - stitches added

19. Thistle Stop by Crossed Wing Collection - stitches added

20. Hummingbird Garden by Crossed Wing Collection - stitches added

21. Happy Christmas by Prairie Schooler

22. Motherhood by Selena French/HAED - 1955/58013 (3.37%)

23. Skating Snowman by Mill Hill 16-2133 - stitches added

24. Trick or Treat by Anne Stokes/Paine Free Crafts - 4531/126400 (3.58%)

25. Cryptid SAL by Witchy Stitcher

26. Vermont Zentangle by crossstitch4everyone - 3109/23502 (13.23%)

27. Halloween Kitty with Pumpkin by Paine Free Crafts - new start 392/100800 (0.39%)

28. Loon Lake by Crossed Wing Collection - new start

29. Dragonfly in Flowers stamp by Sweet Annet - completed

30.The Little Prince stamp by Sweet Annet - completed

31. Journey by Urban Stitches - complete

32. Mr. Grinch by The Cross Stitch Studio - new start 514/9071 (5.67%)

33. Animal Parade by Lanarte - completed

34. 2009 Santa by Prairie Schooler - completed

35. Snow Guide by Lizzie Kate - completed

36. Honest Santa... I Didn't Do It - by The Sweetheart Tree - stitches added

37. Moon and Back by Heart and Hand - completed

38. Happy Halloween by Satsuma Street 

39. Everyone Brings Joy by Waxing Moon Designs

40. Peacock Infinity Feather by CrossStitch4Everyone - completed

41. Witch's Gate by Whispered by the Wind - stitches added

42. Butterfly Quote by Jodyri Designs - completed

43. In Harmony by Dimensions

44. Letter G - by Nora Corbett 

45. Bailey Basset by HAED 

46. Dragon Under Glass by HAED

47. Warbreaker by skitzzzz 

48. Mini Winter Magic by HAED

49. Under the Sea SAL by Lakeside 

50. McLaren Hamilton 

51. Raven Pixie by Nora Corbett

52. Visit Mordor

53. Magical Arrival by HAED 

54. Tiger Stare by Charting Creations

55. Tiger by Paine Free Crafts

56. Triumphant Ride by Charting Creations 8143/50370 (16.17%)

57. Spooky SAL 2021 by The Steady Thread

58. Lo and Behold by Long Dog Samplers

59. Starry Night SAL by Urban Stitches

60. Stroll in the Snow by Asleep at the Stitch

61. Magical Castle Stamp by Sweet Annet - completed

62. Frost by Seba Designs

This leaves me with 45 WIPS that I'm currently working on, so I did manage to meet my initial goal to start the 100 new projects this year! I'll put that all in a separate post. I know it will add a lot to my pile, but it's a big birthday, so it will be a big year of starts as well. 

I hope you all had a good holiday season and here are my last 2 finishes for 2025!

Animal Parade by Lanarte

stitched 1 over 1 with kit threads and fabric

Butterfly Quote by Jodyri Designs

stitched 2 over 1 on 14ct Aida with Jodyri threads

Happy 2026 to everyone!

Tiffstitch

October and November Update

Finally a chance to update everything! Hope everyone had a good last couple months. I ended up catching something again near the end of October and was out of commission for the first few weeks of November as well. 

I didn't get much done on Starry Night because a friend lost their beloved cat and I decided to try and start a memorial project for her. Eventually it will look like this:

And I managed a few days on it, so it looks like this so far:

Orange Cat by BananiStitchery (Etsy)

stitched 2 over 2 as charted with DMC on Galaxy 28ct by BeStitchMe

I was able to upload this into Pattern Keeper with a little finangling, and that made it a lot easier. Apparently I'm not great with paper patterns any more for anything larger than a Mill Hill. ;)

I didn't bring this when we went on vacation over US Thanksgiving week, so it hasn't been touched in a while. I had an urgent knitting project to finish, so I worked on that instead. I mentioned in my last post I wanted to make some socks for my brother, and I didn't have that much time to work on them before I saw him over the last full week of November. He lives out west, so I don't see him that often. He had a big birthday this year, so I had a few other little gifts I'd found, but I really wanted to get these socks completed. 

I finished them on the day before he had to fly back home, so that was good timing! I had one sock mostly done, but needed to make sure the toe fit well, so had waited to close it up until I could try it on his foot. So it wasn't a surprise after that, but I did get them finished!

Vanilla sock pattern with WYS Holly Berry, about size 11 men's

Since we've been back, things have been a little busy with band concerts, etc., so I decided to pick up Animal Parade again and maybe get it finished if I can stick with it. Here's where it's at right now:

Animal Parade by Lanarte

stitched 1 over 1 with included threads on kit fabric

I'm also debating about starting Wisteria Garden by Chatelaine. I have some fabric I think will work, and I ordered the threads from European Cross Stitch. They took a while, apparently Gloriana takes forever to get threads to them, but I have everything now. Here's the floss toss:

I tried to set up the fabric in my scroll frame, but it's not tight enough, so I ordered some larger Qsnaps to try. Hopefully that will work. Everything I've read about Chatelaines recommends keeping the fabric tight for the specialty stitches, so we'll see how it goes. 

I think that's it for me for now, I'll keep working on finishing Animal Parade for now and maybe can get a few other little projects completed before the end of this year. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

September Update

Only a week late since the start of the month, so not too bad  this time. It's been a busy time, one of the community bands I play in had a concert at the end of September and it was really hot that day, so it took the next day to recover as well. Plus I had to work a couple extra days to make up for being ill at the end of last month, so not too much time for posting. 

First, the big news, it's a finish! Peacock Infinity Feather is done!

Peacock Infinity Feather by CrossStitch4Everyone

stitched 1 over 1 full cross on 28ct Amethyst Spirit by Chromatic Alchemy

I'm glad to have this one complete. I have so many of these smaller confetti-heavy projects, and this felt great to finish. Not sure how to fully finish it yet, but something will come to me. Ideas are always welcome too!

I picked up something easier, plus worked on this while we were on a shortish road trip. You've seen it recently, so just a little update:

Animal Parade by Lanarte

stitched 1 over 1 on kit fabric with kit threads

Stitchy-wise I decided to go back to Starry Night and catch up a bit, so I'm now on week 23. I think the last published week was 31, so I'm not too far behind. 

Starry Night SAL by Urban stitches

stitched 1 or 2 over 2 as charted with DMC

I also managed to finish the socks for DD, and start a new pair for my brother. He's having a big birthday this year. Here's the finished pair:

Vanilla sock pattern with West Yorkshire Spinnery in the Nutcracker colourway

And that's September! Most of the month was taken up by finishing the Peacock Feather, and I have a feeling a lot of October will be catching up on Starry Night, but I'm sure I'll pick up some other projects as well. 

I hope you all have a fun month and enjoy Spooky Season!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

August Wrap-up

Slight delay in getting this post up, but I'm sure no one is surprised at this point. Great excuse this time though, another bout of what was likely COVID-19 kicked my butt again. Fortunately no one at work or at home caught it, so no one else was down for the count at the same time. 

August was a little bit different in that I completely ignored Starry Night to obsess over one of my sort of full coverage projects. This is the Peacock Inifinity Feather when you last saw it in April:

and now I've added a lot more to it!

Peacock Infinity Feather by CrossStitch4Everyone

stitched 1 over 1 full cross on 28ct Amethyst Spirit by Chromatic Alchemy

There's less than 400 stitches to go, so I think I'm going to try and stick with it to a finish. That will make it easier to accept starting some new full coverage next year. 

I also managed a little more progress on Animal Parade, to here:

Animal Parade by Lanarte

stitched 1 over 1 on kit fabric with kit threads

Apologies for the blurry photo, this was taken while we were in the car driving to pick up a car for a friend. It was about 3 hours away, so I did manage a decent amount of the more repetitive black stitching on the ground. The fabric looks great in that light though, this is pretty close to how it actually appears. 

I also mostly finished step 21 of Starry Night as well, which looks like this:

Starry Night SAL by Urban stitches

stitched 1 or 2 over 2 as charted with DMC

Not sure if I needed a break from the backstitch or all the blue, but still obsessing over the Peacock Feather. I set up my old scroll frame on my new lap stand, which is fantastic and works really well to get the whole project available to stitch, so that may be part of it as well. 

I fully finished a couple other projects as well:

Moon and Back by Heart in Hand

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct linen with Gloriana threads mostly

I had already sewn the backing onto this project, so I need to sew in the dowel rod. I used the "invisible" thread, which is a bit of a pain, but does look amazing when you're done. DH hung it up in DD's room and I'm not sure if she's noticed yet. We did it while she away at her grandparents for a week. This is also likely why I had time to get this fully finished. 

Another fully finished project:

Normal is Just a Setting on the Washer by Lizzie Kate

stitched 2 over 2 with stash threads (WDW, Carrie's, Jodyri)

I had picked up a sign at Goodwill that had this hanger, so I ironed the heck out of this project, although it doesn't look like it in this photo... Then attached it to the frame so the hanger was still usable. I think this will be a gift for someone, possibly for a friend with an autistic child, but it would certainly fit in our house as well. 

There's some knitting progress as well! When I was feeling really sick I didn't have the mental strength to stitch, plus I was trying to isolate myself away from everyone, so I picked up the two colour cowl I'd been struggling with since December last year. In February this year it looked like this:

Very Merry KAL by Claire Slade

knit with Fiberstash superwash sock yarn

I think I had grumbled about this one back in February because I don't seem to have the knack for colourwork. I did somewhat figure things out over the week I was sick and staying home from work, so I managed to get all the way here before going back to work:

And at that point there wasn't much left, so I kept at it when I had the energy and finally finished it:

I do really like the final result, I think the pattern was great, the problem was me, not the instructions. I love how the yarns worked together, it's very striking, but I don't plan on pulling out another colourwork pattern unless there's a very good reason. 

Also another pair of vanilla socks complete!

Stockingette stitch socks

Nutcracker by West Yorkshire Spinnery

I'm still working through the giant amount of WYS yarn I picked up a Must Love Yarn a couple years ago. I had a gift card and decided I needed multiple skeins of all the colours. Some day I'll get through it, but I won't need to buy Christmas sock yarn for a while. There's some left in the skein, so I'm starting shorter socks for DD. Her feet keep growing! 

I think that's all from last month and we'll see if next month can bring a finish on Peacock Infinity Feather. I have a few days off this month, so maybe! I hope all your stitching has been going well. 

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

Late June/July Update

I could have sworn I had a post in July about June stitching, but clearly not. So here are 2 months in one! I will say I had less stitching time in July because of a couple hockey tournaments, but still have some accomplishments. 

First up, progress on Starry Night SAL:

Starry Night SAL by Urban Stitches

stitched 1 or 2 over 2 as charted with charted threads

 on 28ct white Monaco

This is 2 complete rows! So a good amount complete, although there's still a ways to go. I'm a little behind and have a few weeks to catch up on, which will probably get me halfway through the next row by the end of next week if I can keep at it. 

There are also some finishes, first up Journey by Urban Stitches:

Journey by Urban Stitches

stitched 1 over 1 as charted

on 28ct Red Tide by Chromatic Alchemy

This was a fun one and I can't wait to get it finished. I might try and frame it and hang it in my office at work. I really love the letters in this one, even though I frogged one of the 'R's about 4 times. 

Next up I finally finished another smallish project:

Noel by Bent Creek

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct scrap evenweave with stash threads

I used some Caron snow for the stars and DMC Etoile for the snow and the trees. I like the look of it. The chart has "NOEL" on the bottom as well, but I didn't have a ton of room on the chart, plus this way it's more winter stitching than Christmas, so has more versatility. 

I also managed a little work on a piece that's easier to stitch while riding in a vehicle on our way to one of my hockey tournaments. This is where it was last time you saw it:

and now there's a little more added:

Animal Parade by Lanarte

stitched 1 over 1 on kit fabric with kit threads

I managed some of the fiddly grass while at the hotel, so the long stretches of black were easier to do while riding in the car. There's a bit of the rhino's legs started as well if you look closely. 

This will be an easy one to pick up and work on when I need a break from switching colours in Starry Night, but it still has a lot of stitching left, even if every animal gets smaller and smaller from now on. 

I hope you've all had good stitching months. I've worked out my plans for next year too, I plan to start 100 new things like 2 Martini Stitcher did this year. She's got a FlossTube if you want to follow along with her progress. I spent some time using a planner that I found on Peacock & Fig which is linked if you're interested. The pages I needed most where the ones to write down the project and what fabric I wanted to use and I managed to fit everything with fabric into 1 1/2 bankers boxes. I didn't pull threads yet, but that may happen as I reassess my plans as well. I think I'm pretty much set on choices, but there are always new options that might come up. 

So I hope to catch up on Starry Night and keep on finishing things up so I have 50 or less WIPs at the end of the year. I'm at 48 so far already, so as long as I don't start anything new, I should be good. 

Have a good month! I'll try and get a post up in September on time. 

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

Overdue Update Post

Hey, back again. Life happened and kind of blind-sided me, so here we are 2 months later. Obviously, stitching time went down to almost none, but some stitching was completed. I didn't really progress any more on Snowball Fight, and there's kind of a theme in the projects I have picked up since my last post. 

First, some very minor progress on Do Not Meddle, from here:

to here:

Do Not Meddle by Dragon Fire Designs

stitched as charted 1 over 1

on 28ct Monaco

It's still possible I might actually finish this one this year, so I'll keep it available if the mood strikes. What helps with this one is it's only a few colours, even if 7 or 8 of them are green. 

I pulled out another single colour project to work on since my mental state meant easier stitching was required. Although maybe not everyone finds blackwork easy? I enjoy the fact it's only one thread length and the pattern repeats, so it's soothing in some ways. Here's where I was last on Bibilophile in the red/black colourway:

and now, another finish!

Bibliophile Blackwork Bookmark by Kincavel Krosses

stitched 1 over 1 on 28ct white Monaco

with Flamenco by Jodyri Designs

And I'm sure you'll all be surprised to hear that I changed up my plans and ended up picking up a project not on my list of 12 focus pieces. There's a good reason, I wasn't up to following anything on Pattern Keeper, and I needed something with minimal colours, so I picked up this one, which looked like this last time I picked it up:

and now looks like this:

Animal Parade by Lanarte

stitched 1 over 1 with kit threads on kit fabric

The first photo is more colour correct for the fabric. I'm pretty happy with how much I accomplished on this one. You may have noticed that the rhino on the left looks a little raggedy. I had stitched that one with 2 over 1 and  it was too thick. I've done the rest 1 over 1 and that's been easier and I like the look better. There are several more animals, but they're all smaller than these ones, so it will likely feel easier to get them completed. I will put this one away for a while though. 

I also finished the Wiglaf scarf! This was a good one to work on while I was dealing with everything. It's a very simple all knit pattern with an easy colour change pattern. You carry the other colour up the side, so there's only a few ends to weave in at the end. 

Wiglaf scarf by Lizi Lowe

knit with Fiber Me This You and the Stars 80/10/10 MCN 

and Sassy Black Yarns Connecticut Snow 100% baby alpaca

Here we are almost through July and the Olympics/Paralympics start on Friday. I don't have any new starts planned. I had possibly thought of picking up a different WIP every day, so I might attempt that. I certainly still have enough! We'll have to watch Rachel for her plans as well. 

I hope you've all had a less hectic time over the past couple months and I'll see what I can do to catch up with everyone!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

Another Monthly Challenge - WIP Wranglers

This month the Semi-Sane Facebook group is hosting WIP Wranglers. It's mostly a chance to work on a lot of different WIPs, although they have a Christmas theme to it by calling each WIP a "naughty elf" that keeps running away instead of working in the workshop. You don't have to have a bunch of WIPs, but can use up to 20. No problem there! 

As I mentioned before I was hoping to try and finish some more WIPs before the end of the year, and I think that might be possible. I chose 20 that didn't have a ton of work left on them and a couple I'd just like to get more progress on before the end of the year. There are 3 levels to the challenge, easy, regular and hard. You need 20 WIPs because you use a 20 sided die (or an app) to roll to choose which one to work on. You also use a regular 6 sided die and multiply by 100 to find out how much to stitch on each project. 

For the easy level, you halve your stitches, therefore, rolling a 1 becomes 50 stitches, regular means you stitch the whole 100, and hard means you double it. So you stitch 200 stitches if you roll 1. Any guesses what I chose? :) Also, if you roll a WIP you've already worked on once, you halve the required stitches, and it's "wrangled" then, so you don't stitch on anything more than twice.

My list of 20 WIPs is here:

I have the hockey stick marking the ones I've stitched already, because if I have the choice to use any emoji, I'll always pick the hockey stick. :)

My first roll was 16 and 2, so I worked on Frosty Friends #1 for 200x2 (400) stitches. It looks like this now:

Frosty Friends by Dimensions

kit stitched 2 over 2 as charted with kit fabric

I'm not going to add the before pics on most of these because I have a fair amount of photos to show already. Mostly I just had the outline and a little of the half stitch done before starting on this one. 

Next roll was Butterfly Quote for 1200! That was a lot, I'm so used to Pattern Keeper for these larger projects that I struggle with the multi-paper charts a bit now. But it looks good!

Butterfly Quote by Jodyri

stitched 2 over 2 on 14ct fabric with Jodyri threads

Sparkling Citrine, Pink Laydee, Sunshine State, City of Oz, and 2 others, plus WDW Purple Iris?

I definitely need to get more Sunshine State to finish the "butterfly" part, it's nice to get it moving a bit though and some of the difficult cross page stitching is complete. 

I rolled In the Gloaming for roll 3 and 5, and it had 800 total stitches added:

In the Gloaming by WBTW

stitched 2 over 2 with DMC 167, 422, 3823 and 3866

on 28 ct Mirage evenweave by PTP 

I had planned to make my life easier by adding a bunch more of the gate in DMC C3799, the Etoile, but I've misplaced the bobbin, so I did the slightly harder work around where the fence will go. The last row is almost the bottom of the mausoleum, so it's quite far along. 

In between the two rolls for In the Gloaming was Winter by Bent Creek. I had a very small start on this previously, which I'll show since this hasn't shown up on my blog for a long time:

and I rolled a 5, so needed to add 1000 stitches:

Winter by Bent Creek

stitched 2 over 2 with stash threads besides white and 310

on 28ct Feldspar by Chromatic Alchemy

One more roll might finish this one, it's really just the snowman on top and a few details on the penguins at the bottom. 

Happy Halloween was rolled next and it didn't have a lot done either, but with the addition of 1200 stitches, it now looks like this:

Happy Halloween by Satsuma Street

stitched 2 over 1 as charted

on 18ct Fiddler cloth/aida

This is my first and so far only Satsuma Street, although I do enjoy many of her designs. I have a few others in stash, so hopefully will get them stitched up soon too. 

Next up was another one that hasn't been touched in a long time, since the New Year New Start of 2019 I think:

Animal Parade by Lanarte

stitched 2 over 1 and 1 over 1 with black

on 25ct included kit painted fabric

I had only worked on the rhino before, and it's sort of across a page, so I started on the next animal this time. Can you tell what it is yet? It will be easy as I get farther down. I realized after I'd stitched most of the 400 stitches this one needed that I was stitching 1 over 1 instead of 2 over 1 like the rhino. I feel like that's okay though, because I could stitch the next animal to the right 2 over 1, and alternate, or I could leave the rhino 2 over 1 for a little more emphasis on the animal most likely to be extinct first. Suggestions are always welcome!

An old favourite came out next to get another 1000 stitched into it. 

Princess and the Dragon by Charting Creations

stitched 1 over 1 with DMC 310

on 28ct Amarinthine by Chromatic Alchemy

This only needs about 7000 stitches to be finished! Kind of incredible. I don't think it will be a finish this year, but definitely next year. And you never know, if I get this WIP Wrangling task finished early, maybe I'll pull this out for the end of the year. 

Letters from Nora was rolled next and G is the last one that needs any cross stitch done. The rest only need beads. I rolled a 2, so added 400 to this one:

Letter G from Letters from Nora by Nora Corbett

stitched 2 over 2 as charted

on 28ct Nuriel's Forest by Chromatic Alchemy

This is the last one in the series of 3 I'm stitching for DD. I need more CC Smoke because I'm out, so hopefully the colour will match what I've stitched already. 

Another one that doesn't come out often, even though it's fairly small, is Twilight LeMans, and it had 600 stitches added to it this time:

Twilight LeMans by Heritage Stitchcraft

stitched 2 over 2 as charted

on 28ct linen, unknown dyer

You can kind of tell these are headlights on a wet road I think now. The far right and left blue are the bottom corners, so a little more in the middle and the bottom is complete. This is probably half done or so.

I don't know if you'll remember this last one, it was started a long time ago and has mostly lingered in the pile of WIPs, not really moving along very far. I rolled my first 1 for this project and added 200 stitches:

Dragon silhouette by Lisbei (ludinthemist.com)

stitched 2 over 1 with Caron Waterlilies Holiday?

on 14ct gold sparkle Aida

I found this one while browsing for dragons and really liked the look of it. It will circle around so the tail almost meets the jaw. It probably needs another 600 or so stitches for a finish. 

And that's all for now! I know that was a long post. I may try and get another one up after just a few rolls if I can. I hope you're all staying healthy and enjoying some good weather. We've had snow enough to build a snowman, but tomorrow will be 8C/47F! So the snow will melt, then we drop down to -14C/7F in a few days. Winter in Vermont isn't consistent anymore. 

Happy Stitching and stay well!

Tiffstitch