I'm very happy with how it turned out, even though it was ready to be presented exactly one year late. I had bought it only a month before the date - I always over-estimate my stitching-speed/underestimate the amount of stitching in a design. Also, the bells in particular took a good deal longer than expected, as they were not easy to do, requiring a lot of similar shades and a number of threads used in combination with a gold metallic thread. So, I could only show them the project in progress in 2011 - but they still enjoyed it a lot when it was finally presented, frame and all, for May 2012. :)
On the photo it shows that for all my ironing, I wasn't able to get all the creases out, but that's just the lighting on the photo - now that it's hung on the wall, they can't be seen, I think.
The design is a kit from "Arts and Designs". It was a well-assembled kit, and the design apparently home-made - which is a good thing, even though it meant the pattern came printed on about a dozen A4 printouts. A great plus of the design is that is doesn't use any backstitch. For the leaves in particular, though, I'd occasionally have wished slightly more visibly differing colours.
The kit came with a full alphabet of capitals, names of the months written out and numbers, and - good thought on the part of the pattern-designer - a medium sized print of the whole pattern with an empty middle to write the individually needed letters and numbers into.
However (I couldn't follow a pattern without changing it, could I? ;) ), originally the idea was to write just the couples initials, but I didn't like that so much, I wanted the first names in full. Also, the letters used in this pattern (i.e. the small letters used in the names of the months) weren't so much my taste, so I decided to use my all-time favourite cross-stitch alphabet instead - except for the 'M', which is a slightly slimmed version of the one used in the original pattern.
This favourite alphabet is from a Rico Design booklet, "Die ersten Frühlingsboten zu Ostern", Bd. 7, by Michael Lindner u. Margrit Scharlau, (o.J.) - about 15 years old by now at least.
The little marriage symbol is my own design.
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