The mystery is you won't know what it is going to look like until you finish stitching the last band.......and the bands are a mystery because they will only be released once every month. And everyone's sampler will be different! There are two different choices for every month, one in cross stitch and the other a band with more specialty stitches. In some months there are more choices than that, so there are many different variations, and who knows how many different samplers we will have in the end.
The main thing is to enjoy stitching with us all for a whole year! For those of us on AOL, come talk about the sampler with us! Go to the Cross Stitch Boards where you will find the Mystery Projects Board.
Fabric
The finished sampler will be 98 stitches wide and approximately 192 stitches long. So if you are using 14/28 count, your fabric should be 15" x 22".
16/32 count - 14" x 20".
18/36 count - 13" x 18".
Now this should leave you 4 inches on each side. Plenty for framing, and even enough if you feel like adding a close border.
Make sure you double check your own measurements!
What threads do we use?
The entire sampler can be done in DMC floss. The colors can be substituted for your personal choice and there will be suggestions for specialty threads and beads on occasion if you want to play with them. As the sampler will be in the designing stages for some months to come, it is impossible to give you a list of the different colors we have used. For those of you that have a large stash or even the complete DMC regular floss collection, you are good to go.
Why are we doing this?
Because we are all cross stitch addicts that love a good mystery and had so much fun doing Lynne's first Mystery Sampler. Our main goal is for everyone to have fun as it is geared for the beginner as well as the more experienced stitcher. We also wanted to keep the cost as low as possible so the charts are free! You just buy the supplies you want to work with.
Other ideas.
Other ideas are that you could use Stitchband in either aida or linen. You could stitch all the bands this way and add to towels, candle/bottle/jar wraps. This Mystery Sampler is so unique because of all the possibilities!
Printing Help.
When I uploaded the charts to the site, I found I had to divide the charts for better clarity. While test printing I found that I got better results printing landscape and you may find that that is better for you also. Alternatively you can right click on the charts, save them to your computer as a BMP or GIF file. They can be opened in Paint or other types of graphic viewer programs. You can then open and/or resize them. Other options are that you can go to the AOL Cross Stitch Library and download the charts in either PCStitch 5.0 or Pattern Maker Pro format. You can get a free pattern viewer for PCStitch here. If you are not on AOL you can still download the viewer (it's free!) and I can email you the file.
Questions, comments and complaints!
If you have a question about the charts themselves, please contact the individual designers. There will be a different designer every month and I have put a link to their email at the bottom of every chart. If you have a question regarding the site itself, graphics, charts etc., not loading please direct them all to me, Sharon at MSJC656191@aol.com.
Enjoy the Mystery Sampler! Dobi, Lynne, Sharon and Susan.
Dobi Dobi@aol.com
Lynne LPGRAY@aol.com
Sharon MSJC656191@aol.com
Susan stadler@bigsky.net