tutorial: embroidered blessing ribbons

I showed you one of the "blessing ribbons" I created for my wedding in the last post. Essentially, I programmed a message into my sewing machine (an older computerized sewing machine with embroidery features) and stitched it onto lengths of grosgrain ribbon.

I also created some test ribbons using strips of duppioni silk:
The green is grosgrain ribbon and the blues are silk. I embroidered my brother and his fiancee's names and the date of their wedding onto a white ribbon, which then got wrapped around their guest book:
It's hard to make out the writing in this photo, but the embroidery is a lovely, subtle way to mark something with dates and names.

If you don't have a machine capable of embroidering letters, why not hand embroider ribbon? You could even paint it on as well! I'm making a series of these to include in my wedding album and scrapbook.