The Mennonite Quilt Auction was last Saturday and I'm finally getting some pictures posted. I apologize for the quality of these photos. With the flash, they were almost black, without the flash, they were blurry. You get the idea though...........

Here's a shot of the crowd and this was taken after most of the quilts had been auctioned and the people were thinning out. It was still a good crowd and there were around 250 quilts listed in the auction booklet. The auction stage area is toward the left of this picture.




Here's the first quilt that was auctioned from "our" group of quilters. This one was made by my friend, Joyce, and her sister. I've posted a picture of this quilt in an earlier post on my blog (you can get a better look at it). The auction was not bringing in its usual high prices this year, probably due to the economy, and we weren't expecting it to reach as high a bid as it might have in earlier years. At this point, only one quilt had reached the $2000 mark and one had gone for $1500. Joyce was praying for a $1000 bid. Well, I'm happy to report that Joyce's quilt went for $4100!!! The bidding just kept getting higher and higher and Joyce and I were in tears! What a blessing for hunger relief!




Next up in "our" group, was our Psalms quilt, made by six of us, Kathy, Bev, Joyce, Fran, Lois, and myself. The bidding on this quilt did not go very high.....just $225. It was a disappointment, but we still felt blessed that it did sell and $225 can provide a lot of food for the hungry.



Last up is this little runner that Joyce's 12 year old granddaughter designed. It went for $100, a great price for a little quilt.

Overall, we learned a lot from this auction and what kind of quilts might go for higher bids. Small wall hangings went for a fair amount, anywhere from $100 to $450+. When you factor in the price of the fabric and whether or not you have to pay someone to hand quilt your entry, small may be the way to go.

It was a wonderful, exciting event and I thoroughly enjoyed my day with Joyce and watching all of the quilts, trying to predict which ones would go high.....which ones might not be so lucky. I'm already thinking about next year and what I might want to make. I think I'll do my own project, a wall hanging of some sort, then go back to enjoy the anticipation of the auction results!