Quilting Bees 101 -- Mailing

One of the most important parts of any Quilting Bee has to do with MAIL! Since members of our bees are spread out over the whole world - we have to rely on the mail to get us our fabric & our completed blocks. A few mailing hints:

- Usually the good old regular mail (USPS First Class here in the US) is the cheapest.

- From what I've received, most people like to use the 6x4 white or manila envelopes for mailing. Depending on how much fabric you send, it will cost between $1.00 - $2.50 to mail an envelope of this size/weight.

- It's definitely OK to reuse the envelopes, just plop a sticker over your address when you're returning the block.

- A lot of people put their fabric into little zip lock bags before putting it in the envelope. I think this is nice (keeps me a place to keep all the fabrics organized & together if I have a few blocks out on my work table at the same time) but not necessary if you're trying to cut costs.

- Some people choose to print out an instruction paper to include with their fabrics. I LOVE this, for a number of reasons:

* It usually gives me their name and address right there on the paper, helpful for when I'm sending back their block
* It tells me what bee their in, helpful for when I'm uploading blocks and adding them to groups.
* It gives me my instructions right there in my sewing room so I don't have to constantly go back and forth to the Flickr group to see what kind of block I'm making

- Of course it is not required to send an instruction paper with your fabrics, a lot of people choose to just start a thread in their Flickr groups with instructions, inspiration pictures and other hints.

- There have been varied reports on if the post office charges you more for the little metal tab/clasp on the back of most manila mailing envelopes. To play it safe, you can put a piece of packing tape over it.

- You might want to print out return address stickers for yourself to make it easier to get those finished blocks back in the mail. :)

- At the beginning of the bees that I'm in, I've printed out a hard copy of the list of all participants and their mailing addresses, along with what month they're assigned. This has made it easy for me to have addresses all in one place, as well as to update the list when new addresses have come up.