Janice McC

Good morning all. I see there have been Busy little Bees working around here!

Oh, what the heck, sure, why not use 2 F8s as a trial. LOL. As Themamahauser said, this is what she did on her own in the last round. If anyone wishes to add a second fabric, go ahead, BUT, AND THIS IS A MASSIVE BUT, you must streamline your shipping so that the added bulk will not impair my ability to put everything inside a Priority flat rate USPS padded envelope. If everyone decides to send 2 fabrics, it’s the equivalent of fabric for twice as many members and shipping can become a problem. That means no individual gigantic ziplock bags and large unbendable notes that can really foul up the works. Fold and press your 2 fabrics and put them in a single small ziplock bag, the ‘zipperless’ kind, quart or sandwich size max, one for each person in your group. Make sure they are as flat as possible then put those bags inside a single large gallon size ziplock bag with your names on them. You may use any tracked method you wish to mail to me but remember, I ship in Priority flat rate USPS padded envelopes. The reason is to save my sanity because the cost is known up front. Those of you who send me prestamped tyvek envelopes for use in return shipping might find the postage you attach will come up short – tyveks are NOT flat rate and can vary greatly with the addition of just a few extra F8s. The cardboard letter and legal sized USPS priority envelopes may not handle the extra bulk so please don’t use them either. PLEASE send me only the USPS padded envelopes OR $6 in cash or stamps. Also, please don't send me a dozen first-class stamps; make a special trip to the post office to get large denomination stamps, again, to streamline. When I go to the post office with a package stamped with 15 stamps of varying non-marked denominations, it creates quite a problem for the counter person to determine whether or not the postage requirement is met. It greatly slows the process, not to mention that the crowd behind me gets restless, especially if there are multiple packages like that.

So, all that being said, if you wish to use up to 2 fabrics, it’s fine with me. And, of course, you may stick with the original single fabric as traditionally done. Honestly, I think of this as more your swap than mine so having run a couple of booms now, I’m comfortable loosening up the single fabric rule a bit for a trial run. Besides, if it becomes unbearable on my end, I’ll let you all know!

One more thing: I’ve run the numbers and sign-ups are falling short of being able to put together even one large group but we can have multiple small groups, with at least one each of the 2 and 4 month time period. The suggestion has been made to do as I did before, have one 2 month group followed by another quick group while the 4 month group remains undisturbed. It’s a possibility. Let’s continue to see how the groups shake out the next week.

janice mcc