On Tuesday morning, David and Lyn headed out for a day trip to Florence, Michael headed out to work and I headed….straight to the living room to relax!!!! It was obvious that my body simply needed a day to crash, so I only went out once today….but more about that later.
I spent the day working on the dyed piece that I made last week. I had scanned some pages from a book (cant remember the name) about using embellishments and embroidery and there were tons of examples of underwater scenes. So, I started reading the scans and trying to make one for myself. The first thing that I read was that the best way to make netting “seaweed” was to cut strips in the netting and sheer fabrics and then to burn the edges. SO…..since I didn’t have a candle, I turned on one of the gas burners, filled the sink up with water and started burning fabric. It was amazing how well it worked, although I was worried about how it was smelling in the apartment building. I ended up opening all of the windows and turning the air conditioner on high to compensate and clear out the smell.
Pre-burn…..
Post burn…….
A few to play with…..
I started to lay them out and then covered the entire piece with a fine piece of blue netting.….
I added other pieces of netting, and also an area of silk (covered with netting) to finish out the basic scene. The finale for the evening was adding a few lines of hand stitching to hold all of the layers together…..
According to the book, the next step will be to add the middle layer of reef and fish but that will wait for a few days…..
Now, onto the post office adventure. Michael needed to send some reimbursement information to the Botanical Society so we first had to find an envelope. We figured that we could buy one at the post office, but since we couldn’t find the post office, we stopped at a photocopy shop and were able to buy an envelope. OK….first step completed.
The attendant was able to point us in the direction of the post office, which we confidently entered thinking that WE knew how to mail a letter…..simple….right!!!
Not so much…..
When you walked in the door, there were two rooms, one to the left and one to the right. Both had people sitting behind windows, apparently waiting to help you. We selected the left room and walked up to the first un-occupied lady and proffered our envelope. She frowned, said something and waved us toward the other room.
So, envelope in hand, we entered the right room where two men were waiting on people as well. We picked a line and began to wait. Then we noticed that an older gentleman was sitting on a bench behind us and we were both wondering if we had cut in line in front of him. It was then that we noticed the little piece of paper that he was holding that had the number 140 on it. As we looked up at the windows, each had a neon sign with a“P” and a number on it. Sure enough, when the first teller was open, the number P-140 appeared and the old man went forward.
Ah ha….we have to have a number. I went back into the lobby area and found a yellow machine with three buttons.
I pushed the top button and a paper popped out with the number “H-40” on it, but there were NO “H”s to be seen anywhere. OK….back to the machine and punch the second button. Out pops an “A-289”. We had seen “A”s so thought that we were in good shape. Unfortunately, the number appeared above the original ladies window so we trouped back in, this time assured that we were doing it right. She once again waved us away….this time with a bit more vigor than before.
Back to the machine for the third and final time to try to last button. Out came “P-142”……hooray it was appearing in the correct room this time.
The bottom line is that we finally got our letter mailed although we will be very glad to hear that they have received it!!!!!
We finally decided that “A” stood for administrative, “P” stood for postage and who knows what the “H” the “H” stood for.
One thought on “Time for a post….letter that is…..”
You were very brave using a gas burner. I have always found that method a bit too fierce but you seem to have mastered it. You were very persistent in the post office. I think I might have given up much earlier!Haved loved the posts of your trip by the way – just haven't got around to commenting. Have a great time in Florence, I do hope that it is as beautiful as when I was last there.