abigail and i are having dinner at the former headmaster's house tomorrow night, as his passion for education is contagious, even after all these years! bruce is a friendly giant, standing at 6'2" (or taller? i'm not a good judge of height), and he was super supportive of me during my search for a teaching job. he started a public school for math and science in durham (right across the street from erin!), taught way back when, was a provost of a quaker college, was headmaster at 2 different quaker schools, and is a trustee for numerous educational organizations. i am thrilled to have worked with him and wanted to thank him for all that i have learned from him in my years at this school and for his help in my job hunt. right after i accepted my new position in philly, i quickly started a cross-stitch project.
this took 6 days. just six! (i cross-stitch fast, but do everything else slowly.) the bottom has a chinese wish: "fu ru dong hai su bi nan shan" which translates into "may your fortune be as vast as the eastern sea and your life be more eternal than the southern mountain." i had learned of the phrase from chinese class, back in my days at brown university. however, i must admit to having whipped out the chinese dictionary to retranslate the characters, as my ability to read chinese has declined drastically! 
i custom cut a mat from artist paper again, like with lan and robert's christmas gift, although this time the paper had a woven texture to it. i pasted a pinyin version of the quote with a translation underneath onto the back of the frame, in case bruce and his wife andra ever forgot what the quote said. 
then came the wrapping part. of course i had to use brown craft paper because the only other option was christmas paper (thus, not an option). i'd been wanting to use the washi paper masking tape (pic is from the moma store's website) that julia got me as a christmas gift, but hadn't found a good use for them. 
that is, until now. last night at 11 pm, i decided bruce and andra MUST have a gift wrapped with washi paper masking tape woven in a sort of plaid print. yes, that's right. MUST. also, i decided that this plaid MUST be woven last night. at 11 pm. little did i know that weaving sticky strips of tape would be so difficult.
but worry not! at 2 am, my masterpiece was complete!
this took 6 days. just six! (i cross-stitch fast, but do everything else slowly.) the bottom has a chinese wish: "fu ru dong hai su bi nan shan" which translates into "may your fortune be as vast as the eastern sea and your life be more eternal than the southern mountain." i had learned of the phrase from chinese class, back in my days at brown university. however, i must admit to having whipped out the chinese dictionary to retranslate the characters, as my ability to read chinese has declined drastically! i custom cut a mat from artist paper again, like with lan and robert's christmas gift, although this time the paper had a woven texture to it. i pasted a pinyin version of the quote with a translation underneath onto the back of the frame, in case bruce and his wife andra ever forgot what the quote said. then came the wrapping part. of course i had to use brown craft paper because the only other option was christmas paper (thus, not an option). i'd been wanting to use the washi paper masking tape (pic is from the moma store's website) that julia got me as a christmas gift, but hadn't found a good use for them. that is, until now. last night at 11 pm, i decided bruce and andra MUST have a gift wrapped with washi paper masking tape woven in a sort of plaid print. yes, that's right. MUST. also, i decided that this plaid MUST be woven last night. at 11 pm. little did i know that weaving sticky strips of tape would be so difficult.but worry not! at 2 am, my masterpiece was complete!
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