Another fun postcard from the Northern California Blood Bank, complete with post office additional ink.
Sara reports that she is back home and happy to be there, though frustrated with the campus closing due to protests. Her graduating class was mostly made up of the group that had their senior year hijacked by Covid, so they were having flashbacks.
It’s the time of finishing many things, including this sampler. This is the third of three Dropcloth Samplers I bought in October 2020 with an Etsy gift card from Linda Johnston. Here is the first one, and here is the second one.
I think this is the sampler that has a tutorial on Creativebug. I couldn’t find information about a few of the stitches, so I did all of the sampler but those stitches, then signed up for the free trial and learned those stitches, then watched the tutorial for the schoolhouse sampler.
This sampler came with printed color, which was a fun addition. I’m pleased with how it came together.
Some favorite things: the shag carpet look of the turkey work, how great the brown and red look against the yellow background, and that I was patient enough to even stitch over the printing with the name on it. You can see that I wasn’t really into the close herringbone.
Also fun? I ordered the wrong color of DMC floss, and so I had this hot pink salmon kicking around. It made a great frame using split stitch. I also enjoyed the Cretan stitch. I was not a fan of the Japanese darning stitch. I had to draw guiding lines on the sampler.
Here’s a shot of the back.
Here is this beautiful creation from 1982.
My favorite part is that it is made on the computer paper that was ubiquitous in my childhood and disappeared once dot matrix printers appeared.
There’s even some good first-grade handwriting on display.
Also available: the itinerary for the trip to Hawaii. I remember that we missed the last day or two of school so that we could get to Portland. Grandma and Grandpa came over to Boise to pick us up. There was road construction along the way. Also, what a very long time spent in Hawaii. Glorious!
This is the itinerary for the Florida trip the next year. South Seas Plantation (they’ve now wisely dropped “plantation” from their name) on Captiva Island was very lovely, and we went to Busch Gardens, not Disney World because the crowds would be too big. (It’s also a bit closer, but only 30 minutes or so.) “Are you going to Disney World?” was the number one question people asked when told about the trip.
Another fun thing: The Bubble Room, which I remembered fondly even before we found the kids menu.
I find it interesting how the kids menu food is just the same kind of food as the adult menu. No mac and cheese, grilled cheese, or chicken tenders to be found. (It might have been before chicken tenders?) But what did we order, you ask?
Why, here is the receipt! We went for the steak. I remember that chocolate cake. It was good.
The Bubble Room is currently closed (I believe hurricane damage). But I did find the kids’ dinner menu. I’m grabbing a screenshot of it, just in case it disappears. The game has been replaced by a coloring sheet.
The fresh fish and the shrimp are the same. The steak is now fillet mignon. No more pork chop option or ravioli.
To me, the prices don’t look like they’ve increased much from 1987 to 2024.
Finished! This one took a while. It had a lot going on.
Here’s the overview, and then a bunch of pictures of things that went well.
I think I did a great job with the color choices for this alphabet, and I was pleased with how the variegated cursive alphabet turned out, because I don’t love backstitch and also often variegated doesn’t look so good. But this did.
The different kind of arches around the edge were where I used up bits of thread.
You might not have guessed, but the name and date thing really held me up. I spent a lot of time sketching out what I wanted it to look like and that sketching involved rulers and a lot of math. Given all the prep, it looks a little wobbly. I do like my whipped backstitch frame, plus the chain stitch and green alphabet below it. The color contrast with the numbers turned out great. I don’t love that the number six was so small on the sampler. That makes me look like I couldn’t handle the six.
On the left side, are some fun variations. Given a chance to do this again, I would do all the right-side stuff before the left-side stuff. The left side involved a lot of thick thread and it made it hard to keep tension in the hoop once I got to the right side.
Good old French knots. Yet another way to use up bits of thread. I had to stop making them because the back was a tangled thicket I couldn’t get my needle through.
Having some fun with variegated perle cotton and that backstitch. Also the thick yarn and couching! Love it!
These wagon wheels were fun. Whipped backstitch. Those colors became the alphabet colors on the right-hand side.
The squares showed off different things to do with basic stitches. I liked how this zig zag ended up reminding me of a 70s sweater.
Variegated thread also worked out well here in this basket weave. And I thought I did a good job choosing the gray color to set off the colors. I also tried to do a different style border around all of the squares. This was an alternating running stitch.
Stripes! Another good use for bits and bobs.
Clouds was my favorite square and also rather thick when I finished it.
I like what I did with polka dots. French knots surrounded by different variegated thread in chain stitch. What I don’t like is that this square is not square. It’s not me! It’s designed that way.
Who doesn’t love a good chain stitch rainbow?
My pink/purple color palette came in handy for this one
I also thought I did a nice job choosing colors for the plaid box. Very 90s.
And here’s the back, for those who are interested.
Now that my job has ended, and I’ve given back the monitors and laptop, I’ve reverted to my previous setup.
I gave this monitor to Matt when I got the KVM switch so that I could use the work monitors with my desktop. He used the monitor for a time, and then it sat on his desk, just waiting for me to be laid off. So I happily took it back. You will note that some canning jars are raising the monitor to the correct height.
You will also notice the 2-Hour Job Search book on the corner of my desk. It is helping me network.
Here is a nice tangle with some old favorites and a new one. It was a good middle-of-the-night task when I couldn’t concentrate on my book.
We’ve eaten at República before. It used to be in a smaller space in the Ecotrust Building. It’s moved into a space near Powell’s that once housed that mediocre pasta chain restaurant. This is a huge upgrade. As we like to do, we had the tasting menu.
I can no longer recall what this course was, but it was delicious, as were all our courses.
The bill was delivered in a book along with a card, and we got to take home a little treat for the next morning with our coffee (amended to tea when we told him we didn’t drink coffee).
It was a delicious sweet that melted well with the tea.
República is a splurge that is well worth it.
