Hearts-a-mailing

On Wednesday the 2nd the mailing list for the Block Lotto winners was sent.  I know S***** felt bad about the delay (usually it goes out right after the drawing, which happened the last day of February), the reason for which seems to be a lone winner who was slow to reply with her info (& I am guessing was difficult to reach).  Having recently gone through similar gyrations  on the Facebook Quilt Block Swap Group, I feel her pain.

RANT ALERT: not once but TWICE the same meshugeneh signed up for a limited-space swap in the Fb QBSG, missed the first deadline, said "Oops, so sorry I forgot, but I am on track for the next one", confirmed she was on track for the next one until the week before that deadline when she disappeared, & stayed disappeared until she got the notice I was booting her from the group.  That's when I got a message that she had a recently dead relative.  I'm not saying she didn't; I just don't know how you can be on track seven days before the deadline & then have nothing done seven days after.  Flood, fire that would make more sense.  & before someone gets excited & posts to tell me how hard it is to get even completed quilt blocks into the mail when such a thing happens, keep in mind blocks need to be in the mail almost a week in advance to make the deadline & she posted she was on-track three days before that.

Sooooo, back to Block Lotto:  some new rules are in place & I cannot find a single scrap of one that looks unreasonable.  Reading between the lines, though, it looks like she has been getting some behind-the-scenes flak.  One of the disadvantages of running a digital group, where you never get to see & know most of the individuals in the group is it is hard not to interpret criticisms as from the whole group instead of recognizing there are one or two fringers with nothing better to do with their time.  For a long time I had a criticism from a long-gone swapper taped to my refrigerator; the gist was that I was not a christian & unworthy (I distinctly remember the word "unworthy") of receiving her quilt blocks...or her participation...?  It is a bit hazy, the print-out tore over a year ago & I took it down.  I do distinctly remember what she why she complained:  our swap is send five blocks get five others back.  She sent three for which she 1) expected five back, 2) was not happy with the three she got & 3) wanted her original three back.

After that, when anyone complained (& there were not ill-will complaints: mostly blocks that did not meet the requirements slipping thru, & once a person only received four blocks instead of five while I had zero unaccounted for blocks to explain this & no one else coming forward with six instead of five- it turned out to be static cling & the fifth was found among the four), it was hard not to hear that same unreasonable whinging message & lump these in with them, which might have been the death of the group.  So I kept it taped up as a reminder that one crazy-bitch-meany does not equal all crazy-bitch-meanies.  It sounds goofy, but it helped. 

What was this post about again?  Oh right, I mailed my heart lotto blocks earlier today.  Congrats winners!