2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #70 - Haunted Library by Lola Crow

Of course charts can't travel alone, even when they're purchased online, so I had to pick up another couple charts from the Lola Crow site. If you like gothic style, there's a lot of options. I went with this one:

I didn't see this one during the SAL, but it is very fun. Lots of nods to different authors and gothic tropes, etc. It's going to be another massive project, but it does go into Pattern Keeper, so that helps. With her charts, because of the backstitch you have to use their legacy import instead of the newer one.

I found some fun fabric for this one and stitched over a couple days to get about 500 stitches in:

Haunted Library by Lola Crow

stitched 2 over 2 on 32ct unnamed fabric by BeStitchMe

with DMC as charted

This is going to be another epic stitch with lots of colours, etc. I think this is a good start to get it placed well on the fabric and it will come out again at some point. 

For next year, I've been looking at how Flosstubers use their wheels to select projects and I might do that. Possibly a wheel for unfinished SAL, which I'd add this one to since it was a SAL, another wheel for full coverage, and then a wheel for the rest? Possibly just 3 projects in a week to work on as much as I can, with a goal for the full coverage of at least 1000 stitches. 

Anyway, that's still some time away, but I've been considering how to get everything worked on since I'll have a lot of new WIPs now. Suggestions always welcome!

I hope it's been a good stitching weekend for everyone. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #59 - Mini Among the Cherry Blossoms by Kirstin Mills and HAED

If you've been following me for a while, you may have seen other charts by this artist that I've started, Mini Winter Magic and Mini Autumn's Promise. Both are still unfinished and Mini Winter Magic has a decent amount, so that might be in the plans for next year. 

Autumn's Promise is barely started, so not even worth showing a photo of that one. Today's new start will look something like this eventually:

My plan on this one and Autumn's Promise was to not stitch the background and only stitch the actual dragon and tree branch. We'll see how it goes. I was able to block it off in Pattern Keeper, so I think it could work well. And my very small start:

Mini Among the Cherry Blossoms by Kirstin Mills and HAED

stitched 1 over 1 full cross on 27ct Valkyrie by BeStitchMe

with DMC as charted

I have a plan in mind to get more work on my full coverage designs next year, but I'll wait until I've actually sorted that idea out. 

I hope you've all had good stitching days!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #44 - Punch of Color Girls 6 by HAED and Hannah Lynn (Mega-Maynia)

Another full coverage start this past week! I've had this chart for a while and it was just waiting for the right time to start. I have another Hannah Lynn that I've started, but it hasn't had much progress yet. This one will eventually look like this:

I found a nice fabric from BeStitchMe and I managed to get 3507 stitches into it, all black. I thought that would be the easiest way to get a lot of stitches in. I think there's still about 10K black stitches left though!

Here's where I got to:

Punch of Color Girls 6 by HAED/Hannah Lynn

stitched 2 over 1 on 18ct Scroll by BeStitchMe 

with DMC as charted

I like this one a lot, it's the only chart where I've seen someone in glasses and with a book. I think it will be a fun one to finish, but I'm not getting ahead of myself, there's a lot of stitching left to go. 

DD was looking at what I was doing and really liked the look of it as well. I asked them if they'd like to pick the next one, and after a lot of thought and a couple false starts with charts I've already started, they settled on Kirby! 

If you don't play video games, you may not have heard of him. Kirby is a video game character that sort of swallows his enemies and gains their abilities. The opponent shown is Meta Knight, one of the fierce enemies you have to battle. This chart is discontinued, so not sure if it's available elsewhere. 

Hopefully I'll get some good stitches in, although I'm going to have to use easy guide, so this one will take a long while to get finished. 

I hope you've all had good stitching weeks!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #30 - Your Future by Lollypop Stitches

This is one of the charts designed for the Michelle Bendy Stitchy January 2020 Fundraiser for the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Fittingly, it's a quote from Back to the Future, one of the best movie series out there. Eventually it will look something like this:

I think I'll stitch the side parts since it has the flux capacitors, but I was most concerned about the right fabric and threads for this one. DH and DD helped with the floss toss and here's my start:

Your Future by Lollypop Stitches

stitched 2 over 1 on 18ct opalescent Bedrock by BeStitchMe

with Silks4U threads

I really like the look of it so far, and maybe the colour will pick up the blue in the flux capacitors as well. It's interesting to switch between aida and evenweave. I think I still prefer evenweave over all other fabrics. 

Hope everyone had a good stitching day!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

2026 Year of 100 Starts: Start #16 - Frogs in Your Underpants by Nebby Needle

This pattern has been around for a while, so maybe you've already stitched it up? I've been wanting to stitch it for ages and finally purchased a few years ago, so now it's time to start!

Eventually it will look something like this:

I wanted something a little more cheery in colour, plus a lot of green since I think it's a cheeky Irish blessing. Here's the floss toss:

I found a lovely parchment style fabric as well, so that will showcase the colours well too. 

I don't have a massive start since I was still trying to get some stitches into the HAED SAL, but this was 2/3 of a full thread length of 6 threads. 

Frogs in Your Underpants by Nebby Neddle

stitched 2 over 2 on 32ct Scroll by BeStitchMe

with Silks4U advent threads

I plan to do the words in blue and the accents and other objects in green. I haven't decided if I'll pull out other colours for the motifs, that will likely wait till I get there. 

This should definitely get hung up when it's finished, maybe in my office? How can it not make someone smile when they read it?

I hope it's been a good stitching day for everyone,

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Mischievous March Wrap-Up

I managed to start 5 projects this past month, even if I didn't get that much progress on any of them. 

First up are the Sweet Annet stamps:

I chose 3 of these, so I still have 2 left to start at some point. The progress didn't change too much on these:

Dragonfly in Flowers Stamp by Sweet Annet

stitched 2 over 1 with kit threads on included wooden framework

The Little Prince stamp by Sweet Annet

stitched 2 over 1 with kit threads on included wooden framework

Fairytale Castle by Sweet Annet

stitched 2 over 1 with kit threads on included wooden framework

That last one never did get any more stitches into it. Too obsessed with finishing Ondulations!

With Ondulations, I started having a bit of an interest in more blackwork. I have a few patterns hanging around, but I checked over Urban Stitches patterns and fell in love with this one:

I have picked this up a few times to get a few more colours in and I'm still very happy with it. 

Journey by Urban Stitches

stitched 1 over 2 with charted DMC on 28ct Red Tide by Chromatic Alchemy

I don't know if you can see how the colours of the compass are somewhat close to the fabric? That was a choice on my part since I thought it fit the message. How sometimes things can be very difficult to see when you're working on your mental health. I think I'll stay with black for the words, or possibly a dark grey? Suggestions always welcome!

Lastly, this is the project I just started over this past weekend:

And I managed a decent amount of stitches:

Mr. Grinch by The Cross Stitch Studio

tent stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct opalescent parchment by BeStitchMe

It's not too complicated for a full coverage project, with only about 20 some colours and no background. This was a limited edition, so I don't think it's still available if anyone was interested. 

And here we are! Another Mischievous March in the books and I'm glad I managed to keep up with Rachel this year. I hope you're all having a good week!

Happy Stitching, 

Tiffstitch

A Recent Obsession

 I made it! Less than 2 weeks since my last post. That was what I was hoping for.  I had ideas of posting earlier, but there was a reason this post had to wait. Check it out!

Ondulations by Jardin Prive

stitched on 28ct rainbow gradient fabric by BeStitchMe

It's done!! I asked DH and friends about adding colour or not, and since the fabric itself is so colourful, I went with only DMC 310 and no colours. That made it easy to get all the way to a finish before the end of the month. 

Here are a couple close-ups if you're interested:

Because I got carried away with getting this to a finish, I don't have any progress on Do Not Meddle, and still haven't taken a photo of my 3rd Mischievous March project, but I do have a photo of my 4th Mischievous March start. It will eventually look like this:

And here's my start:

Journey by Urban Stitches

stitched 1 over 2 with charted DMC on 28ct Red Tide by Chromatic Alchemy

I did get a few more rounds on the 2nd PWHL hat, and it's moved up to here:

PWHL team hat by Sydney Gerzymisch

in Berroco Ultra Wool in a deep red, green and cream (although it looks white here)

And that's where we are after almost another 2 weeks. One more start tomorrow and that will put an end to Mischievous March! Plus soon I'll have to decide what I'm going to work on in April. That's 2/3 finishes for my focus projects and one that's pretty darn close that I'll keep working on in April. 

I hope you've all been having a good couple weeks and Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

December Update 2021

You might think today will be a post about finishing up the last November start. And that's not exactly correct. I will post an update, but I've been a little distracted by the latest new shiny thing. And that is this zentangle design by crossstitch4everyone. 

It will eventually look like this:

The reason I wanted to start this one was I managed to find this gorgeous fabric from BeStitchMe, called Autumn. And with a nice DMC 904, This is where I'm at so far on this project:

Vermont Zentangle by crossstitch4everyone

stitched 1 over 1 full cross on 28ct Autumn by BeStitchMe

There's a challenge to stitch 30 minutes on this every day during December, so I've been doing a thread length a day. It's led to some decent progress and fortunately the chart shows up on Pattern Keeper, so that makes it easier as well. 

And here's where I'm at on ornament #4!

Moonrise #4 by Whispered by the Wind

stitched 2 over 1 on 14ct Illusion by Silkweavers

with DMC 310, 3799, 168, 735, 3865 and some RG blending filament on the moon

I need to get this one finished, but keep going back to the other project as well. I do need more DMC 904 since I only had one skein and I'll run out soon. 

Stay well and happy stitching!

Tiffstitch

2021 Tokyo Olympics Stitching Challenge Start #6

Day 6 and it's time for another holiday/seasonal stitch. I don't know if any of you guessed it might not be Christmas/winter themed this time, and if you did, you're right! 

First a quick fun fact for the Olympics, did you know that gold medals are actually mostly made of silver? I only recently found this out. They're over 90% silver content, and enough gold to make it look golden. Apparently if they were entirely made of gold they'd be worth over $30K USD. So I can see why they can't use solid gold for the medals. 

Onto the new start!

Which will eventually look like this:

I'm changing up the fabric a bit though, and I think this might be a fun pillow some day when I finish it. Here's where I managed to get last night:

Pumpkin Patch by Lois Winston

stitched 2 over 2 on Pumpkin King by Chromatic Alchemy

with Cauldron by BeStitchMe

Another seasonal start; I have so many now! But it's all good. I'm starting a lot of things I've wanted to work on, and I don't think I'll quite get to triple digits by the end. :) 

I hope you're all staying healthy and enjoying your day. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

2021 Tokyo Olympics Stitching Challenge Start #2

Hello again! I hope everyone who's interested has had a chance to enjoy some of their favourite sports in the Olympics, or outside of the Olympics. For today's sport fact I chose a sport I played in high school and really loved, what I call field hockey, although most of the rest of the world just calls it "hockey" and calls what I call hockey "ice hockey". 

I used the pictogram for the sport after learning in the opening ceremonies that Japan invented these for the 1964 Olympics. Even if you have no interest in the opening ceremonies, you may want to try and find the section where they acted all 50 of these out, it was hilarious and amazing! 

Back to field hockey, which was introduced to the Olympics in 1908 with 6 teams competing. In 1924 it disappeared because a lack of international presence/interest? But that helped the fans and athletes form an international hockey committee and from 1928 on, it's always been in the Olympics. Naturally (?) it was only for men until 1980! 1980? I swear my sister played it in high school around then, so that's way too late to add it, but at least it did get added eventually. 

And on to more fun things than the patriarchy, another new start! 

I'm going international today, for no particular reason, and I believe this is my second pattern from this designer:

I think I chose this one after I had purchased this amazing rainbow BeStitchMe fabric. I don't think it's quite long enough to get all the colours, but I started in the middle to try and get as much colour change as I can. Here's the 435 stitches added last night:

Ondulations by Jardin Prive

stitched on 28ct rainbow gradient by BeStitchMe as charted

I plan to leave the colours alone. I was debating about a full silhouette, but went with DH's advice to keep it coloured. This will definitely take a while to finish, even if there's mostly black to it. 

I hope you've all had a good day and are staying healthy. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

June? Where Did You Go?

Wow.. end of the month and this is my first post. Maybe it's the multiple posts from last month, but I just never seemed to have time. Even now I'm trying to get this done at work before the next thing happens. 

I do have a sort of plan for blogging when September comes. I'm adjusting my schedule again, this time I'll be working a set Tuesday through Saturday schedule and I'm thinking Mondays will be blogging days. We're hoping DD will be back in school, so that might be the perfect time to have a little time on my own to keep up with blogging again. We'll see how it goes since there always seems to be something that eats away at my time. I'm also wondering if I could attempt a fully finished object on Mondays, which would help with the fullness of the drawer of shame with all these smaller projects I'm going to have. 

Enough chit-chat though, here's where the month of stitching has landed me:

Universal Monsters SAL B&W version by The Witchy Stitcher

stitched as charted on 28ct Trick or Treat by BeStitchMe

There's still a long way to go on this one, but I'm starting to get close to one of the rooms. I think I was working on a FB challenge, so stitched a lot of black on this one to get some stitches in. It shows up in Pattern Keeper, so that's a nice bonus. 

Shamrock by Erica Michaels, found on Rainbow Gallery freebies

stitched 2 over 2 with Morning Glory (forget which company)

on 28ct white Monaco

And it's a finish! I ran out of the Morning Glory thread, so decided to add a little text on the top to finish it off and my initials. 

Easter Bunny and Moon by Chatelaine

stitched 2 over 1 with called for DMC 310 and subbed DMC 726 for 727

on 14ct Aida (Realgar I think) by Chromatic Alchemy

Another finish! This was an enjoyable stitch as well. I added the whiskers just for fun. I know it makes no logical sense to see white whiskers and a white tail on a silhouette, but the tail was charted, so I went with it. 

Patch Christmas Tree 1 by Angie Designer

stitched 1 over 1 on 28ct white Monaco with stash threads

 unknown Dinky Dyes, Caron Waterlilies parrot, Dinky Dyes Down Under Blues and Jodyri Oz the Great and Powerful, another unknown Dinky Dyes, DMC 3799 and Kreinik gold start, Etoile 699 for the lines

3 finishes, what? :) This one was pretty close, so just took a night to finish up the purple and the lines around the tree, the pot and star. Another fun one I'd like to try and fully finish before Christmas if possible. 

Christmas Assisi Sampler by Kincavel Krosses

stitched 1 over 1 with Crescent Colors Bejeweled

on 22ct white hardanger

There was quite a lot of stitching left on this one and it took 3 nights to finish I think, getting 400+ stitches in per night. I do really love the finish and I don't think the photo really captures how pretty that thread really is. I'm looking forward to finishing this one into an ornament I think. 

Halloween Freebie by Passione Ricamo

stitched 2 over 2 with DMC 310 

on 28ct Brittney evenweave Aries by Sparklies

I spent 2 nights on this one I think and got the moon complete in DMC Etoile white and added more of the haunted house and bats. I haven't decided about the word "BOO" near the bottom if I'll stitch that or leave it out, plus there's a witch's hat I'll probably leave out. Maybe BOO should be in Etoile as well, if they have a good orange one? Or purple? What would look good with this fabric I wonder?

Stormlight Archive quotes by Taylor and Cromwell

stitched 2 over 2 on 28ct black Monaco

with DMC as charted

You may notice there's quite a lot done on this one. It's almost 50% complete according to Pattern Keeper and it was a little hard to put down for the last WIP I'm going to show, but I did manage it. I really love how it's coming together and how fantastic each section looks once I finish it. So excited about this one! Maybe it will be a birthday or Christmas present for the end of the year. 

Amazing Animal Kingdom by Aimee Stewart charted by HAED

stitched 2 over 1 tent stitch on 32ct Experiment by Chromatic Alchemy

I'm at 31,000+ stitches on this one, which is 2 full pages complete, plus almost 2 more pages done. I joined a Full Coverage Fanatics group for the Tour de France which has you adding 3400 stitches to your chosen project. I have a long way to go on this one, but I'll try and keep adding at least a few stitches per day for the Tour challenge. 

I hope you've all had a good month! I'm sorry I was so silent all month, it wasn't intentional and next month I'll be working on the Olympics at least half of the month, so it won't be so long again. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Stitch Maynia 2021 Start #12

Hello again! Keeping with yesterday's theme, this is another Halloween project, but it is a larger one. However, I was able to finagle it into Pattern Keeper, so I'm very excited about that. This may look familiar:

Yup, it's the Universal Monsters SAL, only this time in black and white. I completely blame Michelle McGraw for this start. I think she started this one in the summer of 2020. I loved the look of it on the fabric she chose and I thought if I managed to get some of the same fabric, then I would do the same thing. If you haven't seen her FlossTube, I linked to it on her name and she's quite fun to watch. She's currently stitching a lot of ornament size seasonal projects over the year. 

Here's my start:

Universal Monsters SAL in black and white by The Witchy Stitcher

stitched 2 over 2 as charted

on 32ct opalescent This is Halloween by BeStitchMe

The fabric is a little more orange in real life, like this:

If you're not familiar with BeStitchMe, just like I wasn't until a few months ago, she's a dyer in the US and has occasional Friday Night Fight Night sales on her in stock fabric. You can order customs as well and I think it's a month or so to get the fabric, so fairly typical of hand dyed fabric orders. 

I managed to snag a few different ones at some fight nights and have only just started stitching on them. I think this is the 3rd different fabric I've tried from her, and that's all just this month. That was another reason I wanted to start a few different things, my fabric stash is starting to outgrow its current storage. 

I hope you've all had a good day and are staying well. Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Stitch Maynia 2021 Start #10

Hello again! Jo guessed my theme was "seasonal" and she's right. I decided to go through some old binders where I had printed out some seasonal designs from the "old days" of the internet and get them stitched up. However, just as she guessed, I derailed that theme today. It was not a good day at work yesterday. There were several issues, but one of the main ones was we got a call that one of my long-time patients had died suddenly. On Mother's Day in the USA. She had children and grandchildren and was only in her 60s. It was such a shock. I'd seen her and her family almost since I started practicing, so maybe 16 years or longer. I was a bit of a wreck emotionally after that, although I managed to pull it mostly together when I was home for Mother's Day celebrations. 

I wasn't even feeling much like stitching last night, but decided instead of the regularly scheduled seasonal start, I'd pull out one I'd been thinking of starting for a while. 

This is Kathleen and Summer by Hannah Lynn charted by HAED. I'm going to stitch on blue to hopefully not have to stitch all the background. Here's my start:

Kathleen and Summer by Hannah Lynn charted by HAED

stitched 2 over 1 tent stitch as charted on 28ct opal linen by BeStitchme (unnamed colour)

I know, another giant start, but it felt like starting was worthwhile, even if it never gets finished. Hopefully it will at some point though. Once I get farther down I could try the outlining that some people do in 310 for her charts. 

I hope you're all well today. I'm fighting a migraine which might be sinus/allergy induced, so just from being overwrought yesterday. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch

Stitch Maynia Start #5

Day 5 means a slightly larger start, although still not a great big project. Sometimes I pretend to be reasonable with these challenges. :) 

Eventually it will look something like this:

And after a few hours of work, 632 stitches precisely, it looks like this:

Soccer Player by Handblessings

stitched 1 over 1 with WDW Lavender and Ultraviolet

on 22 ct Sky by BeStitchMe

I'm debating about trying to get 100 stitches into it a day, or a thread length to make sure it doesn't linger much past May. It's easy enough with the variegated thread, not much finagling to do, so I'll see how it goes with the future projects as well. 

Tomorrow is another project that's a little smaller than this one, but larger than the flowers. I don't know if a same day finish will be possible on that one either. 

Happy Stitching and stay well!

Tiffstitch