Jake & Jamie's pillowcases

Our friend (and Robert's officemate) Jake got married to the lovely Jamie on New Year's Eve. I embroidered these pillowcases for them as a wedding gift. Since I couldn't be at the wedding, I was hoping to finish them in time to send them to the wedding with Robert, but that didn't happen, so we gave them to Jake and Jamie when they came over for dinner the other night.

I cross-stitched the edge using waste canvas to see where to put the stitches. I had never used waste canvas before, but it wasn't too bad. I think it would be better suited to a smaller design, since it was kind of difficult to pull the threads out after I was done stitching. It would have been a real problem if this design didn't have so much negative space.
Overall, I'm happy with how they turned out. The only issue is that the holes from the brown basting stitches didn't close all the way up when I washed the pillowcases at the very end ... but I'm hoping that they will with time.