2ktog

First off, thanks for all the happy wedding wishes and compliments about the dress and shoes! We are really excited. At first, they sent me the wrong size dress, so hopefully the right size is making its way from the UK right now!
Does everyone remember the world's largest swatch? I was one of the first to cast on a tivoli/picovoli, but many, hundreds even, have finished theirs. Mine is in balls.
However, I am really in need of some seriously mindless knitting. Also, since I stopped knitting so much, I've noticed I've been having symptoms of carpal tunnel, namely my hands going numb at night while I sleep. Screw that! If knitting will keep my wrists limber, I'll have to suck it up and do it. So I've suckered Omar into casting on the super-orange tivoli for me again. He is concerned I may never knit again (because of my obsession with state quarters as my all-consuming new hobby). Actually I've been doing a little bit of crochet and cross stitch.
When I was visiting my grandparents in Iowa in May, my grandma brought out some cross stitch quilt blocks that I talked her into buying when i was eight or so. Of course I promised I would do them all myself. But time took its course, and as often happens to young girls, my thoughts turned away from sewing to lighter matters, like literature. =P
Anyway, my grandma, who is 89, offered to work on some of the squares if I would, too. Now I was never a champion cross-stitch student. I pretty much gave up when I found out that all the crosses had to go the same way. However, this is a very special thing for me to work on a craft project with my grandma, who was not a knitter or a crocheter. She is skilled in hand sewing, embrodiery, needlepoint, cross stitch, and mini-quliting. She made my Cabbage Patch dolls a wardrobe that would make Xavier Roberts weep. So I've been working on one of the 28 squares for this quilt. By the way, grandma has already cross-stitched full-sized quilts for all five of her grandchildren.

Here is some of grandma's needlework:

Here is my grandma working on one of the blocks for the quilt. I took a picture of her looking serious and sewing, but then I asked her if I could take one where she was smiling and looking encouraging so when I felt defeating by cross stitch, this picture would inspire me.

See those brown eyes? She's the only one out of my parents and grandparents with them, and I got them from her! She is really an awesome lady. She raised two sons and was an elementary reading specialist. She's the only one of my grandparents who went to college. I spent many, many happy days and summers at their house. I love you, Grandma!

Lastly, some wedding crafts. I got to go through grandma's cedar chest that will someday be mine, and it was an intensely emotional experience. Some of the things in there are hers, some belonged to my godmother, and others to my grandma's family. The cedar chest itself will one day be mine, it belonged to my grandma's "aunt," her mother's best friend. It was so touching to see all these carefully folded, ironed things that had been embellished by generations of women. I took a few things because I wanted samples of embrodiery.

Grandma gave me a brief embrodiery lesson, in backstitch and daisy stitch. "It looks like a worm with a hat on" she said. ;)

We're not sure who embrodiered these Japanese lanterns, but I love them!

This hankerchief is the most precious to me, though. It was embrodiered by my grandma and the teeny, tiny scallop edge was crocheted by her mother. I'm going to make a ring pillow out of it for our wedding. My grandparents are moving the week before our wedding, and traveling is really too much for them, anyway. So they will be there in spirit.