hey barri i see you have joined the yahoo postage stamp group. it looks like you and i along (and perhaps others) have been cutting 1000's of these little squares for the various swaps. well i am happy to report i have cut and mailed all of my squares for the 3 different swaps (yahoo, curious quilter, quilt board). now all i need to do is sit back and wait for my little gems to roll in. what anticipation!

mary

Well thank you! I'm sure there would be more of us if people "Down Under" knew about this group. I found it by "chatting in cyberspace" to Barri via another swap (Curious Quilter). Don't worry anyone who swapped with me there...I'm pretty sure 40 of the 50 charms are ones I haven't swapped before!
I finished packaging them all up last night so they will be in the mail tomorrow morning (Monday). We don't have post on weekends!

Hi Mary,
I joined the Yahoo swap, but haven't gotten anything about being accepted. I must be insane. I have the envelope for Mariposa ready, but have to hit the P.O... Mom volunteered to go for me, but I hate to impose. She's 84.. I won't have a chance this week, as I'm in one office, and I'm covering.. In other words, working for two. I am hopefully going to Haiti in Oct, and need to save up time.. I also got two new boxes of scraps. I do have a major concern.. I'm not thrilled with my accuracy of cutting. Sheri was nice enough to do a demo on how to cut, and hopefully I will get to try it..

Sam
How about spreading the word down under that the US people have squares to swap.

what will you be doing in haiti? i interviewed with an organization last week with a business in haiti and am just waiting to hear from the director, yeah or nah. i need to get some of these boxes of scraps your receiving. what joy. if you find a solution to cutting your squares more efficiently then your accuracy will follow. there are so many ways to cutting 1.5" squares even from scraps. using the 1.5" corner of a ruler template with scraps should work wonders.

here's hoping you find a good solution for you.

I was invited to Haiti to help open a medical office. I have a bunch of friends in the NE corner of MO that support missionaries all over, and Solonoque has a brother that graduated medical school, and is in need of help opening an office. It's a little funny when I go on missions with my friends. These are Christian missions, and I am Jewish. It's interesting because I am parallel in religion with them, and can have major discussions on the Old Testament. I don't know much about the New Testament, but we have a lot of fun with interpretation of what meanig, or underlying meanings on some things.
The scraps were rescued from someone on the board that was going to use them to stuff a dog bed. She mentioned that she needed help with how to do it, and I mentioned that there are a bunch of quilters that would be glad to take her scraps, and create quilts. I sent her postage, and she sent me a 6lb box. She said she had more, so I sent her more postage for a friend, and me.. She sent me another 6lb box.. Just think.. Some nice dog would otherwise be sleeping on beautiful, nicely ironed, and perfectly cut 2.5" strips.. I wonder if we could put a note in the offers section advising that we are looking for scraps, and how many people would be glad to oblige. I have enough scraps to probably make a dozen or more quilts. There isn't enough fabric to make a quilt that isn't scrappy.
Thanks for advising me on how to cut the squares. I have been sitting on the couch with a sharp scissor cutting around a template. I stack the fabric about six fold. I am noticing the inaccuracy, and tossing a bunch. Will try it your way, and Sheri's..

barri1 i am a christian and have both jewish and muslin friends. the jewish faith and christian faith are so closely aligned but my learning curve is with the muslin faith. i have had some very in depth conversations with my muslin friends to try to understand islam a bit better. there is even a woman in my women's supper club group that is an agnostic. i am all about tolerance whether religious, ethnic, eclectic personalities, whatever. when we come together to do mission work it is all about helping the people rather than our religious differences. good luck on your haitian mission.

i wanna see some of your scrap quilt creations when possible. the offer/wanted section was used more frequently before the board changeover but since the board changeover not so much.

I, too, had a swap partner from Australia for the Curious Quilter swap. When I invited her to join this group she was concerned about having to pay postage twice. I guess she means mailing her squares and sending a SASE. I meant to try to figure out the cost difference to see if it was actually that much, but never did.

it's about $2-$2.60 to mail the squares one way to/from australia. it cost me $2.53 to mail to australia (my pkg wasn't flat enough; otherwise $1.92) and the package i received from australia was $2.35.

I can't figure out the US mail system. I had three to Australia @ $3.85, and one to Canada @$3.85, and the nine to US @ $.85. The US postage bothered me. I went in with the packages, and they wanted to charge me $1.95, and advised me that if it was thinner it would be $.65. Of course I went home, and repacked them, and took them to another post office the next day, and it was $.85.. It is a lot cheaper to do the swap where you send all to one spot, and Rhonda posts them in the SASE. Anyway.. I am having a lot of fun, but am getting grossed out with my livingroom looking like it was taken over.. I enered the Yahoo swap, and am still waiting for an acceptance.. I'm okay with waiting, as I want to finish my project..