A goal met on Royal Holiday!

With everything going on, I've still managed to fit in some stitching.    Really, when you're stressed out and busy, is there ANYTHING better or more therapeutic than fitting in an hour of stitching at the end of a stressful day?   Out of all the chaos comes something beautiful and calming.

I'm participating in a contest of sorts over on the Mirabilia Stitchers yuku board and my goal was to finish all the red of Royal Holiday's cloak for the contest.   Normally, that's a fairly mild goal for me, given there were about 6 weeks of stitching time in the contest, but with everything going on (see last post LOL), I thought it was reasonable.   Well, with two weeks to spare, I reached my goal - quite impressed with that, really.  I didn't think I'd fit as much stithching in as I did.

I'm going to still continue working on Royal until she's done, as I want to get that all important 2010 finish date on her.   I'm currently working on the "sash" of ribbons falling down from her waist.   After that, I need to go back and fill in some of the scrollwork on her skirt and finish up all the white/gray of her cloak.    After that it's onwards and upwards to give her a head!

Nifty little tidbit - although I'll be changing my last name, my "sig" of SMW will get to stay the same for my needlework projects.  

Sorry I've been AWOL for a couple weeks....I have been busy!

As you know, I don't talk much about my personal life on here.  I'm just not one to "put it all out there" as it were....privacy and all that :-)   However, I will share a little here.  

I married the love of my life a little over a week and a half ago!  After much stress and planning, we had an absolutely gorgeous wedding on a beautiful fall day....everything was just perfect.    Yes, there were a few glitches here and there, but honestly, in the big picture of things - they were no big deal.   We had some gorgeous locations for the ceremony and reception so we didn't do a lot of decorating per se, but we did have a fall theme, which included loads of potted mums everywhere, caramel & chocolate dipped apples for favors, some things in the menu that were seasonal (mini sweet potato tarts for passed appetizers, roasted butternut squash soup), beautiful flowers in fall colors (reds, oranges, yellows).     We took a couple of the mums home from the ceremony (pictured above) and will plant them in the garden.   I absolutely loved loved loved my dress;  I also wore a brooch that my grandmother wore on her wedding day.

Back to our regularly scheduled life :-)

So hopefully...

...I can get Royal Holiday finished in the next month or so.    I've been working on her a bit this week, but have been fairly busy as we're counting down to "the event".  Ahem.

Anyway, I'm working on getting the red on her cloak done: 

Still a fair amount to go and as is often the case with Miras, headless.  But every couple stitches gets you a little farther, right?

Once Royal Holiday is completed, I will feel free to start the Celtic Ladies series...one at a time and that series will get done when it gets done  They're not huge so if I can finish one a year, that'll suite me.   But never fear - I am not QUITE done with Mirabilia Queens...there's still Queen of Liberty and Queen of Peace kicking around.  I don't have any immediate plans to do them but I expect I will at some point.  And as always, I'd welcome a new Queen from Mirabilia any time Nora chooses ;-)