Mary's Sampler Week 1 Stitching

The wonderful Paulette Stewart of Plum Street Samplers has designed a holiday sampler that she is sharing with the blogosphere every Sunday for the next 9 Sundays.  Today was the release of the first motif - Mary and Joseph.

Here is my start.  I found a piece of 36ct. Light Exemplar in my stash that I decided to use and I had all of the GAST but Expresso Bean so I pulled the DMC called for on that.  Tonight I sat down and started my stitching and everything went well except for the blank sash area you see in this photo. 

I have tried about 4 different choices and was happy with none of them.  There just wasn't enough contrast between the colors.  I tried Piney Wood, thinking that would be very different from the browns but with only one thread, it didn't give enough contrast.

I'm leaning towards using Mulberry but I want to see a little bit more of the piece before I go with that in case it clashes with something nearby.  I got tired of ripping out so I've put it away until next week.

I'm looking forward to seeing how others are doing with theirs and their color choices.  If you're stitching this, please leave me a comment so I can check out your progress!