Just basically wanted to post the roses I’ve got growing for the coming season (My first attempts at breeding too!) to keep a record for myself and see if you guys have any input. I’m in the UK 
Peace (Climbing)
Arthur Bell
Hot Chocolate
Midnight Blue
Purple Tiger
Sheila’s Perfume
Abracadabra
Crazy For You
Golden Smiles
Pumpkin Patch
Tawny Tiger
The Painter
Trumpeter
Black Baccara
Double Delight
Sugar Moon
Babyface
My first year trying to hybridise too, hopefully one takes…
Wow, these are borderline ancient. I’m surprised you found copies of some of them. Most are out of commerce on this side of the pond.
They will be disease magnets in your climate. If you plan improvements then crossing these with each other won’t do it.
A common theme seems to be McGredy, is that on purpose?
Which Abracadabra?
This is my second season growing the vast majority of them (excluding Tawny Tiger, Sugar Moon and Trumpeter) and so far I’ve had zero struggles with disease, barring a rust issue with Hot Chocolate last season which has cleared up. I assume that’s why they’re still so widely available in commerce over here!
In terms of whether the McGredy “theme” is deliberate, only in so far as I really like a lot of his roses. Although out of my 17 roses, only 3 are actually his so I’m not sure it could be called a theme.
KORhocsel, although I’m given to understand it’s essentially infertile and being a sport I doubt the striping would carry anyway. This is more for display than actual breeding stock.
Fingers crossed for us both!
Midnight Blue here is terrible, it is dropping its leafs already. Abracadabra doesnt make very beautuful blooms.
I think if you are breeding for your own enjoyment then use whatever you like and is healthy in your garden’s microclimate. After all you are not trying to bring something to market but just learning and hopefully having fun with it. 
Being a newbie myself, I now see how many mistakes I made last year, and this year I also consider as just a learning phase, which in hindsight will also probably be full of mistakes. So I think the main thing is to enjoy that process and to keep very detailed, regular notes on what you try, when, and the results good or bad.
This forum’s archive is incredibly helpful and the HMF information on lineages is an extremely valuable resource. Good luck with your crosses!
Strange, Midnight Blue is one of the best performers in my garden! Agree to disagree on abracadabra 
Exactly that! Of course it’s the dream if something by chance happened to be good enough to bring to market but my focus is just learning, having fun with it and hopefully getting something interesting!
I have spreadsheets and notebooks at the ready
I’ve already found HMF to be immensely useful and would highly recommend the premium membership to anyone on this forum!
2nd year newbie here as well, and ditto everything SeasideRooftop said, except a small caveat on HMF: take the listed parentage of any rose with a grain of salt. I don’t think it is/was uncommon for breeders to mislead other breeders (+lots of modern roses are simply “seedling x seedling”), there are many famous roses where parentage is disputed, some breeders didn’t keep perfect records, and some of the very earliest rose crosses were simply planting two roses in close proximity, and hoping for the best.
I have a very large rose garden of mostly nineteenth through mid twentieth century cultivars, not chosen because of their hybridizing value, but just because I liked them. So I find it a lot of fun to create “new” hybrid perpetuals, or Pernetianas, or first generation hybrid teas. This is the advantage that we, as hobbyists, have over the big guys…we can waste all the time we want crossing something like ‘Marie Van Houtte’ with ‘Alfred Colomb’ just to see what pops out. 
Yes, breeding for what you like and what grows best for you is the way to go. Adding other healthy roses to the mix will give your roses further range. Taking notes is a great way to learn!
I’m glad that ‘Midnight Blue’ works well in your climate. It is a very cooperative seed parent, so use it extensively. It will be difficult to get anything other than pink, light pink and darker pink from it, but sometimes you will get some nice purples and with stripes, can get some nice stripes. It has floriferousness going for it. The key is finding good seed parents. I don’t have experience with your other roses except for ‘Trumpeter’ which is nice and 'Purple ‘Tiger’. Both of these will be best as pollen parents. Search for great seed parents. Most roses can be used as the pollen parent (although there are exceptions), but far fewer roses make good seed parents. Best wishes!
Thanks for the great tips! I’m glad to hear that trumpeter and Purple Tiger have made good pollen parents for you too, and I’m looking forward to seeing what I can get from Midnight blue! I’ve tried to pick a lot of roses I like while looking at descendents on HMF, where possible prioritising those that have been used as seed parents before (Although I know this is to be taken with a pinch of salt) so I’m excited to see what my results are like
Midnight blue is stunning!
Added Blue for You as of today as I’m impulsive and it looks stunning in images 
Blue for You is a terribly disease-prone rose here, but it can be a very useful parent, and will probably be healthier where you are. I liked Midnight Blue quite a bit for a hot minute before it fell apart from blackspot. You’re lucky to have a better climate for it (or fewer blackspot strains, whichever the case may be)!
Stefan