Remember over a week ago Fran had sent me a box to Poland. I had to fill out some paperwork for customs - unlike I’ve had to do before for any of her boxes. She was told we would have to pay about $50 customs for this box alone.

Thankfully they did NOT charge the $50 to get it like she had been told might happen.

I was charged 9 PLN which is about $2. I gave the guy twice that as I didn’t have that amount quickly. I told him to keep the change.

Anyway, I did get the box from Fran on that Friday.

And here is what I got!

I had thought she was exaggerating when she wrote that there were 20 tops in the box, but she was not. There were actually 21.

Some were small. Others were large.

Because as you know I’ve been working hard on tops I received all last year - well, I’m just putting these at the church building to be worked on at some future, unknown time.

I currently have enough for me to do in our house and getting more and more is beginning to feel oppressive. Too much. It’s actually a blessing.

I know that there will be a time that Fran will be unable to continue, so I am so grateful for every.single.top she can make now. But you all have seen how many tops I’ve finished up lately just for charity - ready to quilt. Then, Ewa’s mom gave me 80 centers lately as well - so you can see that if I did it full time (and I don’t - I do other things as well), I would be kept busy. If you figure a generous 1 hour per top to add borders to, that would be 21 hours just for this box alone - but that doesn’t include the cutting out of the borders. I got very far behind last year (and I was already behind as I have tubs full of tops in the church building). However, I know already that having the long arm hopefully will enable me to finish more without bodily harm or stress.

I did want to report on this situation. We had heard that they were going to crack down on boxes from the states. However, I did some searching on the ‘net and while they may be going to do it on things that you order from companies, I did not see any new regulations for boxes that were gifts or sent like this to us. I’m relieved, actually. It is possible that all boxes will now need paperwork - as before sometimes they just came. It is all so irregular. Sometimes things are one way and sometimes they are another way. I just usually have to wait and see what happens and what charges I will be hit with.

But I’m so thankful! Thanks to all of you who help with these tops. They enable me to do so much more than I could do otherwise!

Interestingly enough - I did ship 3 boxes to myself/ourselves while still in Florida. I am curious if I will be charged a lot for them. I am hoping within 2 months of when I came back - which was March 17 - so hopefully by May 17. In it are a bunch of charity tops and then literally, scraps from when I was sewing in FL back in 2021. I didn’t know what else to do with them! I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away but they weren’t good enough to put in the store and sell! Yikes. What could I do? Well, I threw them all in the boxes with the charity tops and called it good. I’ll let you know when they arrive. I did not use the post office, however, but rather, a shipping company.

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store here!

Feel free to browse the site.

Fran's Box Came!