Christmas Mystery I

Author: Martina Weber (Châtelaine Designs) 
©Martina Weber, 2004. All rights reserved.

Châtelaine Designs website
Christmas Mystery Yahoo Group
Previous progress scans

With a gift certificate and group membership as Christmas gifts from two wonderful friends, I started this mystery in January, 2004. I doubt I will keep up with it month by month (I usually don't have enough stitching time), but it is definitely in my rotation and I can't wait to see the finished product!! So far I have only kept up so well because I left my job in January! :) This is stitched on Kiwi Illusions Taupo (from Country Stitch)...with a beautifully packed kit from Kathy at European Cross Stitch.

So far I have made only a few modifications. I did the over-one portion as tent stitches with two plies of silk. I lightened the background 1/2 stitches around Mary and baby Jesus by two shades because I thought it looked too streaky otherwise. And I have rotated the beads 90 degrees on the sides so they would fit better...and by 45 and 90 degrees in the crystals so that they "radiate" the same way the spokes of the crystals do. In part 7, I changed the holly berries to be Rhodes stitches, and added backstitched veins to the holly leaves, because the silk color used for the veins was nearly identical to that used for the leaves proper.

Updated 8-19-2004
167 hours
Parts one through eight, minus a bit of part six and the beading for part 8. This part took sooooo long that I decided to work on some other things I needed to get done this month and hold out on the beading. Luckily, I just saw the next part, and it's much smaller, so I should be able to catch up. I did change one thing on this part...the color of the "C" shapes on the left-hand large crystal. I changed it to the second lightest shade of blue instead of the overdyed specified...I felt the constrast was too high compared to the right-hand crystal.