How to Host a Swap...Without Going Insane

One of our swap participants asked that I blog about the actual process of managing the swap. It seems complicated, but really it's very straitforward, and anyone can do it. So...here's how it worked...

1. 
   
   I co-hosted the swap with my sister-in-law, Wendy. This was nice because it cut down on the work for one person. She coordinated all the sign-ups and sent instructions to everyone. I received all the fabrics, distributed them, and will mail them out.
   


2. 
   
   We had 20 participants (including ourselves) who each sent 20 4 inch squares of 10 different patterns (total of 200 squares from each person). Each person will get 200 squares back, but with 200 different patterns. So, just remember that the amount of fabric people send will be the same amount that they get back.
   


3. 
   
   This meant that I was collecting 4,000 pieces of fabric which seems overwhelming, but really, it was just a matter of storing them until I was ready to distribute. Whenever I got a package in the mail, I'd mark the person down, and stash their squares in my very sophisticated storage system...
   
   
   
   

   



4. 
   
   Once I received everyone's squares, I started the process of distributing them into 20 different stacks. Starting with the first pattern...
   
   

   



5. 
   
   And going through all 200 different patterns...I'm sure there are lots of ways to do this, but by doing it all at once, and one pattern at a time, I could be sure that each person got every single pattern. This took a LOT longer than I thought it would. About 4 hours. But I got to touch every single piece of beatiful fabric, so that made it worth it :)
   
   
   

   



6. 
   
   We also asked each swapper to send a self-addressed stamped envelope with their fabrics. This made it MUCH easier to package the squares up to send out.

And tomorrow I will head to the post office!

So that's pretty much it! Not so scary, huh? This was my first swap to host and it has been a great experience! I highly recommend it!