Vent on Stoney Creek pattern

I am working on Stoney Creek's "The Magic of Christmas". It is turning out
beautifully. I love the juxtipostion of glossy, shiny mettalics and
blending filaments with the matte finish of anchor floss; and the delicate
stitches done with floss vs the rather plumbed up look of the stitches down
with pearl cotton. It is an amazing piece.

That said, the directions leave a lot to be desired. For one thing, when
doing the top of the piece which has specialty stitches, you need to have at
least three pieces of paper - one to learn which stitch and fiber to use,
one to see how to do the stitch and one to see where it is located. Another
thing, there is no one piece of the pattern which shows you the whole
piece - there is a piece for the right top, the left top, the top center,
the middle center, and the bottom of the piece. None of them had any of the
other sections referenced on the page, so you can't see if your stitches are
off or not. Also, you can't see how the whole is going to look. This might
not matter, but as I got to the middle of the piece, I realized that the
words in the top center were not centered. After about an hour of counting
and trying to figure out what I had done wrong, I looked at the cover
picture and realized that that was how it was charted! If I had seen that
before I started, being the anal person that I am, I would have centered it.
But, the two side pieces weren't referenced on this page so there was no way
of knowing this until I was almost done. Also, I inadvertently picked up
the right top piece instead of the left top piece when I was working, which
didn't make a difference until the last row. I didn't discover that until I
started doing the bottom of the piece, where I now have to fudge a little.
You can't see the differences on the cover, as it is done is glissen gloss
and doesn't show up well in the picture.

This is the first Stoney Creek I have ever done. Does anyone know if all
her pieces are done like this? If so, it might prevent me from doing
another of her projects, regardless of how much I like the finished project.

Thanks for letting me vent!

Pat in SJ