By Cross Stitch Library · September 20, 2026
A close-up robin portrait crowned with holly, mistletoe, and Celtic-knot foliage — a richly detailed Christmas design blending folk-art tradition with nature.
Your pattern is at the end of this page, right after the stitching guide below.
An extreme close-up of a robin’s face fills nearly the entire frame, crowned with a wreath of holly leaves, pale mistletoe berries, and Celtic-knot foliage worked in soft sage and cream. The composition is unusually tight and intimate for a bird portrait — you can see individual feather-shading transitions across the cheek.
This is a Christmas piece built for people who want folk-art depth rather than a straightforward holiday motif — the robin subject nods to traditional British Yuletide imagery, while the Celtic-knot crown gives it a distinct decorative edge over a typical winter-bird pattern. It works as a centerpiece for a from-Scotland-or-Ireland-themed Christmas display, or simply as the most detailed portrait in this collection. Pair it with The Wee Celtic Druid or Rowan the Celtic Explorer Fox for a full Celtic-themed set.
At 29,338 total stitches, this is the largest and highest-stitch-count pattern in the whole batch. Three shades — 3866 (Mocha - Ultra Very Light), 967 (Apricot - Very Light), and 754 (Peach - Light) — cover 11,378 stitches between them across the robin’s face, and because they’re all pale, closely related tones, telling them apart under normal lighting takes real attention; a good daylight lamp will save you more re-stitching here than on any other pattern in this collection.
Pre-separate the three pale face tones (3866, 967, 754) into individually labeled bags before you start, and keep them physically apart from your working thread pile — with skeins this close in color, an unlabeled loose thread is easy to misidentify once you’re a few rows deep. See our choosing your first fabric guide for advice on lighting and workspace setup for a detail-heavy project like this one, and our framing your finished piece guide when it’s time to display it.
Choose your paper size and color or black & white, then download the The Celtic Yuletide Robin PDF chart and thread list — free, no sign-up.
