Quote Originally Posted by genuinefarmgirl View Post
Really? I'll have to admit I'm surprised! You probably know that it is not something that is required here. Sadly, more and more people here are surprised when someone can even write in cursive. And, they assume that one must have an amazing amount of patience to write in calligraphy. It simply takes some practice.
Yes, really. It is not only required in schools, it is the only way children learn writing. And it is the only way ~90% of adults use for daily purposes (90% is just my guess, of course).
Moreover, when we learned English at school (4th - 10th grades, I had English as a foreign language class), we used the same cursive style to write English letters. And we did not know they are not frequently used.

Yes, I am aware of the fact cursive writing has become uncommon at least in the US (I am not sure about the UK though). But believe me, when I learned first time about that fact (that you do not use cursive), I was as surprised as you are now 'Cause it would take for me ca. twice longer to write in block letters as compared to the cursive, where all the letters are joined into a single line within a word boundaries.

Quote Originally Posted by genuinefarmgirl View Post
pushvv - I don't see how the line underneath could look like a 'д'... but I'm not Russian. The line under 'спасибо' is simply a flourish. Should I just give it another try and post it?
He means there is another (alternative) common way to write "д", as well as for some other letters. But I do not think you need to bother with alternative writing styles right now. As to me, I can recognize them of course in other people's writing, but I do not use them by myself (I only use the standard style, basically as in the picture from the link I provided).

The main problem in your writing is "б". Both capital and small letters are unusual. It took time for me to recognize "Бог" because of the way you wrote the capital "Б".

A minor problem is also with your "в" in "благословит". This letter is much better, but please note the bottom ring should be just a ring without an outstanding straight line. The whole letter is written as a single stroke anti-clockwise, starting from the upper ring and continuing with the bottom ring.

All other letters look good
BTW, your writing is beautiful. Mine looks much more ugly