SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING TRIANGLES EXCHANGE

[Annis C.]

I used the same Avery software and printed my screen name and both states where we divide our time---N.H. for summers and Florida for the winters. I'm planning to make at least 12 sheets or maybe more----
Mona80

[Annis C.]

I hope there aren't any quilt police in the group. I have 2 more hours of sewing to do then will be ready for cutting. All of those dashed lines are making me dizzy. So how close to the line do the stitches have to be? If they're hugging the line sometimes is that good enough? There's no way to do that much sewing and keep them exactly on the line at all times, not as fast as I like to sew anyway. I was getting too many pin pricks on the machine I started with so switched to a machine with more space to the right of the needle. At one point it was sewing when I wanted it to stop and stopping when I wanted it to sew. It straightened out though and maybe I will be able to finish the rest of them with no problems. Since each of my sheets makes 30 I will keep 2 from each that are the least perfect. I'm making 930 triangles, but will only be sending 616 for this exchange. Some of them are for the batik only exchange and I will donate some to the Queensland Flood Victims. I will send those in a separate package so they won't have to be separated.

Wow that's a lot of work. One quick thing I saw. If you are sending them in for this group. It is not a batik only exchange. We are doing batiks, prints, tone on tone and handdyed. You will get back a mixture. Wow 930 triangles. Are you dreaming triangles yet? Clara

[Annis C.]

Hi Everyone!
Putting a self-adhesive address label ("free" from charities) on each paper triangle is an easy solution to fast labeling every triangle. Most of them will fit nicely along the long side of the triangle. They even have a pretty/cute/environmental icon to the left of my address to make them more interesting for scanning onto fabric. Just a thot...
Happy quilting, :lol: :lol: :lol:
Shirley, Gresham, Oregon, USA

[Jo B.]

You are your own Po-Po (Police). :P We are using the paper for it's accuracy sooooo - slow down GUUURRRL! :idea: They aren't due til April 1. I know when you sew so much the lines get fuzzy and the quality get fuzzy too. :shock: :cry:

I'm excited to get my HST from around the world :lol: :lol:

[Jo B.]

This is making me giddy with excitement and I'm telling everyone I know, even non-quilters about this. there is no way they will catch the excitement until we produce the finished product. Our guild's show is on October, so I will have to finish mine for that.

[Judith A.]

I was snowed in today and wanted to take advantage of the day off to work on my triangles, but my triangle paper has not arrived yet. I tried the free HST papers you can print from quiltingandwhatnot.ca, and found them to be accurate, for my computer and my printer. You have to remember to select "no scaling." I tested mine all the way through the process, including taking the paper off some, pressing and measuring them opened up to make sure they will end up the right size for whoever gets them.

I had no labels in the house. I did not want to write my name and state on each triangle - I have way too much carpal tunnel for that.
I drafted a Word document with columns of my screen name and state, repeated in columns, in a small font.
I printed the HST papers. Then I ran them through the printer again and reprinted them - this time with the Word document with my name and state in columns. It worked fine.
I hope this helps someone else.

Judy in Virginia

Judy

[Annis C.]

[quote="jojojo"]You are your own Po-Po (Police). :P We are using the paper for it's accuracy sooooo - slow down GUUURRRL! :idea: They aren't due til April 1. I know when you sew so much the lines get fuzzy and the quality get fuzzy too. :shock: :cry:


I'm limiting my sewing to an hour at a time so it's not too bad. I'm used to making half-square triangles oversized and squaring them up so the sewing doesn't have to be perfect. This will be my first time to use paper for these. And my to do list is so long right now I need to get them finished and out of the way. Most of the fabrics I'm using are batiks, but I know I will be getting a variety of fabrics in this exchange.

[Annis C.]

JudithLee » Thu Jan 27, 2011 11:06 pm

I was snowed in today and wanted to take advantage of the day off to work on my triangles, but my triangle paper has not arrived yet. I tried the free HST papers you can print from quiltingandwhatnot.ca, and found them to be accurate, for my computer and my printer. You have to remember to select "no scaling." I tested mine all the way through the process, including taking the paper off some, pressing and measuring them opened up to make sure they will end up the right size for whoever gets them.

I had no labels in the house. I did not want to write my name and state on each triangle - I have way too much carpal tunnel for that.
I drafted a Word document with columns of my screen name and state, repeated in columns, in a small font.
I printed the HST papers. Then I ran them through the printer again and reprinted them - this time with the Word document with my name and state in columns. It worked fine.
I hope this helps someone else.

Rosemary
Judy in Virginia

I'm using these papers as well, and after printing out 1 page and checking it was OK for scaling, I went ahead and signed each triangle - 18 of them, I then used this as my master to copy as many pages as I think I might want. Sure beats signing 100-200 of them

[Carol M.]

Good Morning Clara & Debbie,

I had an idea to help with the sorting. Do you have a church all with lots of big tables in their fellowship hall? You could explain you situation and I think most clergy people would love to help. You could start putting signs on the tables. A number of tables would have USA signs, then a few tables for the Aussie signs, Ireland, etc. Then on the tables establish a grid system. Something that would look like a big checker board. Number the grid sections starting with #1 - whatever to help you keep track in case you need to take a break and then it will be easy to come back and know where you left off. Place a bag of 28 triangles in each grid section. These triangles are all of the same type so you only need to pick one when you fill an exchange order. When you have a good selection of triangles are out on the tablea you can start filling the exchange order. Take a person's bag, see how many they are to get from the exchange and go around to the tables and start selecting ramdomly the triangles from the tables. This way you will get a few triangles from other contries in each person's bag. Then when a grid section becomes empty fill it up with a new set of 28 triangles and just keep filling those orders. This hopefully will eliminate duplicates in exchange people's bags and everyone will get a nice selection back. I so would love to come and help!!!!! This sounds like so much fun. The visiting and building of friendships would be precious!!!! I just thought I would try to help with your little sorting delimma. I use to do a lot of work with project teams in my previous life. I was an IT Project Manager. I worked with a lot of department staff, programmers, testers, and quality assurance people. We would gather everyone together and start laying out ideas. No idea was a good or bad idea. It was just an idea. We would write them all down on a white board. Then after we could not think of any more ideas we would start analizing the ideas on the board that everyone mentioned. We would start to cross out the ones that definately would not work and put the ones that would work to a new list. I think you get the idea. Then after we were all done we would finally have our proposed solution to but to the test. Up until now it is just up on the drawing board but now it was time to put it in action. Maybe this post will get more ideas flowing to help with good ideas for sorting. Have a good day everyone!!!!

[Carol M.]

My ideas on trying to sort out the Sort.

Ideally you would like to have everyones baggie open all at once to do the exchange. This would need about an A3 size (approx 2 sheets of letter paper side by side) per person - an awful lot of table space, then I considered using chairs, 1 per person. Still huge, you would need a 615(plus) seater auditorium. However it might be more achievable in a church, using the pews.

With each person's HST's, postage box/bag & return label on each chair, remove the HST's from the baggie and leave them on the chair, taking the baggie ,then go and fill it with the correct number of HST's from every other chair but the original. When it is filled, return it to it's packaging/return label and turn it over to show that it has been filled. Then move onto the next baggie, and so on.

Whatever system you decide upon, write it up on a large sheet of paper and place it where everyone can find it. You could also make small directions sheet for everyone taking part to keep with them, so that everyone is working to the same system and not changing it part way through :!:

Still you've lots of time to sort through all our suggestions

Rosemary

PS you could also designate one person to be the 'Official Panicker' - they do all the panicking for everybody else while everybody else gets on with the job in hand. That way you don't have more than one person panicking at a time :lol:

[Margo C.]

I suggest that you don't use chairs (pews) or the floor for your sorting. You back may never recover from all the bending! Picking up/putting down one triangle at a time would be would be painful long before the job was done! :?

[Dawn S.]

While most of you are focusing on the actual sorting, my mind is wandering to the recieving and storing of all the the large envelopes and boxes! I'm guessing there will be days that Debbie is picking up 20 or 30 or even 40 boxes and envelopes from the PMB place. And, will probably have to stop there daily, and bring them home to store before the big day. I am trying to picture 615 packages stored ANYWHERE in my condo. Not even a possibility! This whole project is mind boggling, and my hat is off to Debbie and Clara for volunteering! How do we say "Thank you?" Personally, I think it would be wonderful if we could all send a fat quarter to Debbie and Clara! They will have definitely earned them!

Dawn
In beautiful Northwest Montana

[Dawn S.]

Anyone who sends me a self-addressed, stamped envelope, I will send them a signed 2" square for their quilt. You will know if you have one of my HSTs if it says "Pat~Story City~Iowa~USA. Please contact me before sending your envelope.

[Roseanne M.]

It's so interesting to read all the posts! Y'all are so clever.
Was thinking about the signature block proposal...though it's
impractical to send 615...what if we all sent a few to the organizers/chief sisters
for their personal use? Also maybe 3 for Edyta, Alex & Ricky along with 1 extra HST for each of them?
What do you think, my sisters & brothers?

[Roseanne M.]

I think that is a great idea!!!! Count me in!!!