I made a quilt for a charity auction and dinner only to find out that the dinner was canceled four nights before. That left a big problem in my mind. The whole point of the dinner (in theory) is to get community “high rollers” there for the auction to increase the likelihood of higher auction bids, etc. At least, that is the way it should work in theory. The problem is that the number or pre-sales on tickets was not enough to cover the cost of the dinner itself. They were going to be losing money on the event before they ever made it to the auction itself. That is not good.
I understand why they canceled the auction. It just does not solve the problem I now had on hand with this beautiful quilt and matching pillow shams and throw pillows. You can pull in money at a dinner auction for something like that if you have outside people. My concern is that with an auction being held at a concert (which they decided to do instead with the auction), you are not going to get as high of bids. The bids will be limited to the same people that are going to be paying for the trip that the auction is fundraising for. These are the same over stretched parents some of them. Not an ideal situation in my mind.
Some people would think that this is not a big deal, but you have to keep in mind what the cost of a custom quilt is. NOT CHEAP! A quilt off the store shelf is chump change when compared to something that is quality made and custom.
Often, people do not realize that quilts involve a LOT of fabric. Quilt fabrics can be expensive. When you are making pillow shams and throw pillows, it can drive up the cost more because you have even more yardage. Let me emphasize this again, there is a LOT of fabric in a quilt, especially if you are talking about a queen sized quilt. This particular quilt is a large queen (it is almost king sized).
So I had to figure out a way to unload this quilt.
Do not get me wrong, I love this quilt now that I have it put together. It is beautiful. I did it in black and gold with the intention of doing in Klein Oak High School’s colors but I thought they would be too stark of a contrast against one another to limit it to just those two colors. I found some fabrics that included black, grey, white, and gold. They were perfect! I threw in some solids in a couple of different “gold” colors (yellows) to help soften it a little bit and it turned out absolutely lovely. I had it quilted by Kathy’s Needle and Thread in a Dolphin Grey thread. It added a nice, yet soft, contrast against the black background. It turned out better than I expected. Then I found out that the color combination was a popular combination right now.
I decided that I was going to go ahead and open an Etsy Shop. I know that I have my own website for my business and I could open my own store easily enough, but Etsy has a following that I just do not have. There are advantages and disadvantages. I weighed them for about a week before making the decision. Of course I go to set up the store and that was an experience all by itself.
It is recommended that you have at least 10 items in your Etsy Shop. Awesome! That means I need to get other things made. Stat!!! So I started sewing other things. What things do I have enough fabric to make? I got started. I have several things started and should have them up in the shop in the next couple of weeks even if I do not have a full 10 items when I open the shop.
Tonight, however, I was looking for scraps to match various fabrics that I was using for one project. I had been going through my stash looking for things I could use for a variety of projects. What things go together that I already have so I can get this done now…That kind of thing.
I have boxes of left over fabrics from other much larger projects that have any where from 1/4-1/2 cuts left on them so I was pulling those out.
I pulled out this box…
This is one of the boxes that contained three of the Christmas projects I worked on 2-3 years ago. I cannot remember exactly. I have looked in this box 2-3 times this week.
Incidentally, I had thought about this particular pattern for a quilt several times in the past couple of months. I thought I would have to go looking for it online and potentially have to buy an archived copy of the magazine that it was in online if I could not find it. I knew mom had the original copy of the magazine but that does not mean that we would be able to find the original. All I had was the “rough name” of the pattern to search by. I was hoping I could find the copy we had made of it.
In the 2-3 times I had been in this box this week, I had not seen this pattern. I had been through the box contents roughly, but I know the first time I went through it upon pulling it out initially I did go through it to see what was in it as it had been so long since I had been in it. There were a lot of expired Hobby Lobby, JoAnn’s, and Hancock Fabric coupons from that year’s many shopping trips to get various supplies. I do remember that and laughed that I had thrown everything in the box (probably in an attempt to get it all put away that year in a hurry). I found lots of things of interest…
For some reason, tonight I opened this box back up to look in it again for something else. I needed something to match again. I just opened the lid tonight…
Tonight is the eve of five years of the anniversary of Margaret Goins’ death and I have no idea why tonight was different. When I opened the box tonight this was what I found. Laying on top of the box when I opened the box was that pattern.
The significance of the pattern is that this is the pattern I had picked out to make a quilt from the fabrics I had picked for Margaret’s quilt. The title of the quilt is “Friends Forever.”
Tonight I needed to see that pattern. I needed to see that gentle reminder that I could survive these 5 years and it did not matter that she was not here in person. I was a survivor and I could do this. I smiled at the find. I smiled at the memory of my sweet, best friend. I longed at her memory for a minute. No tear did I cry tonight because I did not need to. My heart was happy.
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