Debbie;

You are truly an amazing person! Always thinking of other people. . .wanting to share the $10,000.00 to continue the sisterhood with yet more fabrics for everyone! Your community is lucky to have you! Wish I was closer to help sort and meet you all!

S/ Barbara

Josew wrote:

I'm glad you're feeling good enough to get back to school, Jose! Hmmmm...since we can't wait till June to do the sorting, when's your Spring Break ? Texas is lovely in April ...not too hot and not too cold!

On the serious side though, congratulations on your upcoming retirement! I bet you can't wait to dedicate a lot more time to your quilting.

Debbie

RiverOwl wrote:

I imagine this would be the first ever HST exchange for Guinness; however, I have a feeling each and every one of those little darlings would have to be individually counted to actually qualify + we'd have to invite Guinness to sort day too, but we could always use some extra hands. Hopefully sorting day won't be so crazy that it would actually be considered for FHV...but it would be fun to win $10K...then we could share it with all our SoTTS to buy more HST paper or fabric.

Whoo Hoo! I just finished 700 HST's! And thanks to having the nasty flu for the last 2 days I found time to check out the blog! I will get these in the mail in the next week! Now back to school tomorrow, hope my students are glad to have me back. This has been a great project for a working quilter because you can do steps at a time like, pin paper to fabric, stitch, cut and sort as time permits. I can't wait to see the sorting process if I was retired I think we would have to drive to TX.Looking forward to getting my surprise in the mail. Best of all I am retirning in June so this will be my first retiremet project! How FUN!!!

Dear SoTTT’s;

Does this mean we may be able to enter into the Guinness Book World of Records for the most HST’s in one exchange? Wow, that would be cool! Is there a way we could all get on ichat the day of sorting? Okay, maybe that is crazy but if you do a video to put on u- tube, me-tube, or whatever it is called (am I revealing my age here?) that could be fun, or who knows you could end up on funniest home videos and win $10,000.00?

S/Barbara

P.S. I forgot to include the extra something for the sorters so I am thinking I will just make up a box and send it to be “Not opened until day of sorting!” Maybe some other Sisters out there would want to do the same thing and put in some surprises to keep our sorters going on that day. . .just a thought, no big deal.

Hard to believe it's March 1 already :shock: ...which means there's only a few more weeks to get your HST's in the mail to make the April 1 deadline.

If you have them finished and ready to mail, it would be really if you could send them as soon as possible. Since it takes a lot of steps/time for me to get each package ready for 'sort' day, I would be most appreciative if you can get them mailed right away .

Thanks,
Debbie

ClaraLawrence wrote:

Not sure if I really, really want to think about handling 240K :shock: of those little babes, but what will be will be & we're in it for the long haul . It'll be interesting once all is said & done to see how close this number really is!

Debbie

Hooray – I have posted my HST today - what a lovely feeling. I have sent 616 (22 X 28) plus some for Hanne-Grete and for Queensland. I have put each 28 into a small sealable bag with my screen name and where I am from. These have then been put into a larger Ziploc bag with my screen name and amount on the front of it. All this has been put into a Size 4 Jiffy bag (this is about the size of your Priority envelope and there was still room for more HST) with my screen name and total amount on the front - whew – I hope I have done everything correctly.

Thank you so much Debbie and Clara and all your team for all that you have done and are doing. I don’t think anyone envisioned this would take off like it did.

Looking forward to what is coming my way

ClaraLawrence wrote:

As my hubby would say "that's alot of them paper doohickies!" I don't think we've mailed you ladies enough chocolate (or margarita gift cards )!
Lori

With these numbers, I worked some averages and right now we might be looking at over 240,000 HST!!!!!!!!!!! Woof. Clara :shock: :shock: :shock:

LoriLB wrote:

Thank you for your very sweet words, Lori. In our wildest dreams, I don't think any of us anticipated this and especially not Edyta when she started getting so many orders. Clara and I were excited when we had the first 100 signed up, and then each day it seemed to grow by another 100 or so until we finally made it to deadline day. I think everyone has pretty much the same 'personal representation' thoughts that you do about choosing fabrics, sewing and cutting right on the lines, and carefully preparing them for mailing.

We'll definitely be taking pictures on sort day(s?). Clara is an expert photographer and my DH (who gets to take the day off of work) just spent 'too much' on a new camera, so he'll be there to practice using it. It will also be interesting to see how many vehicles (or loads) we'll actually need to get the HST's to the sorting location...probably need to rent a U-Haul . I have them all stacked up in so many nooks and crannies in my home, that I'm not able to take a good picture of them all together right now.

Debbie

Hi Debbie -
Are you planning on posting pics on the blog of the sort day? It would be fascinating for us all to see...when will we ever see that many HSTs together? I can't even imagine the mountain... Did you think this exchange would take off this way and become so large? :shock:

Thanks so VERY much!! Every part of the process has been exciting...choosing my fabrics as a personal representation, striving for the best piecing and cutting of my quilting career, mailing off my precious HST "children", and becoming completely riveted to this blog! PLUS the best is yet to come...our packages arriving at our mailboxes! :shock: Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Lori

COUNT UPDATE ON FEB. 28: 239 PACKAGES RECEIVED CONTAINING 93,280 HST'S...won't be long till we reach 100K. Maybe tomorrow??

With this many packages already, and a LOT more to go, I'd like to give a BIG SHOUT-OUT and HUGE THANK YOU to all of our SoTTTs members whose packages I've already received who......

INCLUDED ALL THE SPECIAL NOTES AND GOODIES FOR CLARA, MARGO, OUR FUTURE SORTING HELPERS, AND MYSELF;

SENT EXTRA HST'S...JUST IN CASE;

GENEROUSLY INCLUDED HST'S FOR HANNE-GRETE AND QUEENSLAND;

USED YOUR OWN ADDRESS AS THE 'SENDER' ON YOUR RETURN ENVELOPE, SO IT CAN GO BACK TO YOU IF POSTAGE IS DUE SINCE P.O BOX WILL BE CLOSED ONCE EXCHANGE IS OVER;

PROVIDED YOUR HST COUNT AND SCREEN NAME ON THE OUTSIDE ENVELOPE AND ON THE INSIDE OF YOUR PACKAGE;

SENT AN EMAIL LETTING ME KNOW YOUR PACKAGE WAS ON IT'S WAY;

INCLUDED POSTAGE ON THEIR RETURN ENVELOPE OR MADE SURE THEY CHARGED ENOUGH PAYPAL TO PAY FOR INTERNATIONAL RETURNS;

INCLUDED THAT 'SOMETHING EXTRA' FOR THE UNEXPECTED;

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!

Debbie

This past weekend I was at a quilt retreat and there were 3 other women there who were also participating in this HST exchange! I hope I end up with one of their squares. Mine are finished and ready to mail...