Quick weekend trip to Tucson, AZ - for a Western wedding!

Hello, readers!  I hope you had a great weekend.  Here is what I have been doing – it has been a trip!

I have been traveling SO MUCH lately.  This weekend, I went on a quick (Friday-Sunday) trip to Arizona for my aunt’s wedding.  My fiancé was supposed to meet me in Tucson, but unfortunately, his flight was cancelled because AA is having labor issues with its pilots.  :(  It was still good to see my parents and my sister, though!  :) It was such a beautiful ceremony – my aunt and her new husband held the ceremony at his stepmother’s house.  The wedding was country Western-themed, so all of the wedding party wore vests, denim, and cowboy boots.  The happy couple got married standing on a platform overlooking the lagoon-style swimming pool amidst a background of desert, mountains, and saguaro cacti.  Here is one of my favorite shots from the ceremony:

My aunt's country Western-themed wedding in Tucson, AZ

So, now, I am sitting in the Detroit airport waiting for my flight back to Boston.  I have been quite busy stitching, of course.  “A Day at the Beach” is coming along very quickly – I only have two panels left to stitch.  Here is a shot of how it is coming:

"A Day at the Beach" - only two panels left!

I am going to try to finish it in the next week or so!  It will be nice to get my last summer piece out of the way so I can get started on Christmas projects.

I have been trying a new thread organization trick lately.  See, one of the things I hate most about needlework is continually threading needles and winding thread bits back onto bobbins when I switch colors – especially when tweeding or metallic threads are used.  I have been trying instead to keep a stock of needles pre-threaded with each of colors I use.  I store the needles in a scrap piece of fabric, and I label the scrap with the name/number and symbol of each of the thread colors.  Here is what I mean:

New needlework trick - keep one needle pre-threaded for each color

Label the colors with their chart symbols

I also found these cute little plastic organizers at Michaels.  They are just the perfect size to hold about 9 or 10 floss bobbins, and they are great for traveling with your projects!  I think they were about 3 for $4 or something.  They are very sturdy and snap tightly closed!

Tiny little floss bobbin container!  So cute, and perfect for traveling.

Finally, I have one last bit of good news.  On Friday, I presented my thesis project proposal and passed my oral qualification exam for my PhD!  This means that my advisor is officially committing to fund my research until I am done with my degree.  I am going to be studying gene mutations in liver and colon tumors in mice.  It is a HUGE relief to have the proposal out of the way, and I am looking forward to having a little less stress in my life, at least until the research picks up.

Thanks for stopping by and for your very thoughtful comments!  I really appreciate the time you take to let me know what you think.

-Erin

"Celtic Wedding Prayer" by Design Works (Cross Stitch)

I finished this piece a few weeks ago for my sister's wedding.  The kit has been discontinued, so it is difficult to track down if you want to stitch this piece (I found it online from Rebecca's Crafts).  Overall, the stitching process was frustrating - the kit originally included two different colors of "light green" floss, and some of the colors were a weird synthetic material that knotted and twisted frequently.  To Design Works's credit, though, once I requested a new aliquot of light green floss, they sent me twelve strands of the same color within about ten days.  Also, the symbols on the chart are TINY and very hard to read!  I saved the chart because the overall project came out so well, but it was a heck of a road to get there.

The image banner at the top of my blog is a detail shot of the border of this pattern.

"Celtic Wedding Prayer" - knotwork detail from border

Here are pics from along the way:

"Celtic Wedding Prayer" - gold stitches in border only

"Celtic Wedding Prayer" - lavender stitches added to border

"Celtic Wedding Prayer" - light and dark blue stitches added

"Celtic Wedding Prayer" - first corner finished

"Celtic Wedding Prayer" - gold stitches in second corner

"Celtic Wedding Prayer" - lavender stitches added

"Celtic Wedding Prayer" - three corners finished

"Celtic Wedding Prayer" - partially backstitched border.
The backstitching really makes the knotwork "pop"!

"Celtic Wedding Prayer" - lettering and backstitching finished, unframed

"Celtic Wedding Prayer" - finished, matted and framed