Post Quilt Blocks Internationally For Less

This post was originally written for the BeeInspired group. I thought I’d share it here as well.

Before signing up for two international bees where posting quilt blocks to the rest of the world is going to be a monthly activity I did some research into postage costs. Here’s what I found:

1.     Cost variation between parcels and letters is immense!

As you can see from the image below (taken from the Australia Post website) the starting cost for sending a parcel from Australia is $15.85!

Compare that with the price of letters – much better!

2.     Weight matters

That’s the weight of the contents not your personal weight – if you’re happy and healthy then have that slice of cake! As you can see keeping the weight under 50g gives the cheapest option and then there’s a big jump to the next cost scale.

3.     Variations occur across the various countries so check on your local postal websites. StashBee had some resources for US postal services that I’ve included here.

ENVELOPE SIZES

One of the variations I found was in the size limits for envelopes. In Australia our largest size is 26 x 36cm (10" x 14") with the maximum thickness being 20mm (just over ¾ inch). In the US the maximum size is just over 6" x 11 ½" and ¼" thick (US Postal Information on Letter Sizes). That’s still plenty of room for a quilt block though!

PACKAGING YOUR BLOCK

Stash Bee has two good articles on packing blocks for posting that I highly recommend reading

The Inside Scoop on Lower Postage Rates

Best Practice Tip For Mailing Blocks

I packaged my block inside a zip lock bag. In the end I didn’t close the zip because it fills up with air and I wanted it to sit as flat as possible, and I taped the zip down and added a label with the address as suggested in the second Stash Bee post above.

WEIGHING IT ALL UP

And here’s what I included for my test run up to the post office (I ditched the crappy homemade gift card before posting the real block and replaced it with something of similar size but way better). When I weighed this on my scales at home it came in very close to 50g and I forgot to ask how much leeway was left, but rest assured that it came in under the weight limit. When I put 50g (0.05kg) into the US Postal Price Calculator it came up with a cost of $2.10 for posting to Australia which isn’t too bad!

Hope you find this helpful!

Linking up to Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl for Tips andTricks Tuesdays.