Chinese Whispers

[Margo C.]

Last night I ordered the needles from the manufacturer and they have free domestic shipping. In the website it said until March 31, 2013 but my order got processed with no shipping or tax charges. If you need help I'd be willing to order locally, send them to Lorna and she can then send them to you or I can ship them to each of you directly or one of you and you distribute/ship them to the others, whatever works best for you, just let me know. Not sure how much longer they'll honor the free US shipping but we can try.

[Susan B.]

Rosemary, thanks for explaining. I'm obviously new to such considerations! I hope you all get an opportunity soon to try these needles.

[Lotti D.]

Ladies, if anyone can wait till the end of June... I'll be bringing as many as we can find and there is interest in back from Canada. I can use my friends us post box to have them shipped to, and then I'll post them to you in a letter.... Will check out those sources with sales right now...

[Lorna B.]

I'm always happy to help out. I have ordered a few things and had them shipped here without problems. Or on my rare trips to the states I will pick up a few items that I need. I might be going to a conference the last week in June.

[Lotti D.]

Ok, I just made a wholesale order of the spiral eye needles... Apparently I'm bringing a whole bunch home with me for the European quilters

[Rita C.]

Good for you Lotti. Can I place an order with you?

[Renata L.]

That was really nice of you, Lotti!

[Lotti D.]

I'm not allowed to sell via Internet, so 'orders' technically not possible, but as I placed this as a joint 'European quilters' order, so I'm just doing the transport service for myself and my quilt sisters in Ireland, the UK, Denmark and ???

[Norma H.]

Lotti, you are awesome. I can wait but I'm so happy to see this needle coming closer. I hate it when the others just cut your thread into pieces.

[Norma H.]

Thanks a lot for that Lotti I am sure that we could arrange some swaps or exchanges, rather than having you 'sell via the internet' :wink:

[Rita C.]

Limbania I want to thank you for posting the link to Geta Grama's blog and her amazing hexagon quilt. As I was looking through her blog I noticed that she is from Brasov in Romania. Let me tell you a little story.....

DH and I have worked in Romania a few times in the past few years - particularly in Sibiu which is not very far from Brasov. We were working with two Romanian choirs one of which was an all male trainee priests choir. The leader of the choir is a priest who lives and works in Brasov - Fr. Dobre. He and his wife (Roxana) set up a school for orphaned and impoverished children in Brasov and my DH and I have contributed in a small way to the restoration of the building that houses the children and provides a lunch for them each day.

I had suggested to Roxana that my quilting group could make quilts for the children if that was of interest. But Roxana came back with a better idea - how about I teach the children how to make quilts for themselves. I thought this was a great idea and we talked about how we could do this with me in Ireland and her in the middle of Romania. We discussed the idea of me doing youtube tutorials but I was not convinced that this would be enough to teach the children. So I ground to a halt because I didn't have the time to go to Brasov to teach the children.

When I saw this link Limbania I emailed Geta to see if there would be any way that she would be willing to give a little time to show the children how to make a quilt if I supply all the materials. I got an email from her this morning to say that she would be interested and she will get in touch with Roxana to see what they can do together. Geta is busy until September but maybe they will be able to do something after then. Could the children have a better teacher? I don't think so.

So, hopefully a small group of disadvantaged children in Transylvania will learn to quilt because of a connection made from Arizona to Ireland and then Romania. Isn't this forum just wonderful!

[ANNE E.]

Yes it is!
Good luck in this venture.
Great stuff Rita.
Anne

[Renata L.]

This is wonderful, Rita, what a small world, and what a generous heart all of you who are involved in doing something memorable for these children in Brasov. They will love learning to create something special and remember it and those who made it happen for a lifetime!

[Margo C.]

Rita, that whole scenario gives me chills. What a wonderful serendipitous happening!

[Margo C.]

Amazing story Rita.

If you need any help collecting stuff for the children to work with, don't forget to shout out here, I am sure that lots of us can spare a scrap or two to help the next generation of piecers and quilters....