Rewards

Last night was the fund raising auction at my grand daughters private school and even though I had vowed to not do any more quilts for the auction for the simple reason that generally they cost a lot more to make than they bring in for the school and after a couple of years of quilts that went for a lot less than I had spent having them quilted I decided to do something else for the auction. Usually I offer up cupcake making services for kids birthdays and those sell really well and bring in a good deal more money than they cost to make them. Also do homemade cookies and pies that people can have me bake for what ever occasion they like and those sell well too and a couple of quilts I did made some big bucks but the last couple were not as interesting to those biding or whatever.

My daughter approached me with the idea that she and another mother had for the 2nd grader's class project that involved quilting and I of course said "oh, sure" as each class has to come up with something to make and sell to the parents in the auction. One of the mothers who's husband works for HP (the printer people) said she would take care of taking the pictures and printing them up on the fabric. She used the paper back cream colored fabric from Printed Treasures and after taking really cute pictures of the kids in various poses she printed them up on the fabric in soft sepia tones. Along with the kids there was a picture of the teacher and one of the school logo and another that said "2nd Grade 2008-2009" which gave me 20 blocks to play with.

My daughter, the photographer mother and I dug though all my batik's and came up with what we thought were a nice selection of 30 or so batik's and then let the kids pick their favorite fabric from that pile. I reserved the right to add the smaller inner boarder on each block to help balance the colors in the quilt and then I picked the dark sashing and the border, backing and binding. All batik's of course. One of the teachers when she saw the quilt finished said, "In all my years at Ashbrook I've seen a lot of class projects come and go but this has to be the most beautiful quilted one." So I think we did well.

When my daughter dropped off the girls last night for a sleep over party at our house while they went to the adult party and auction at the school Tess told her daddy "be sure to bid on my class quilt.....cause I really like it." Mike bid valiantly but dropped out at $400 and the quilt finally went for $465 to the father of one of the boys in the class so although Tess didn't get the quilt it did raise a nice sum. I suppose one of these days now I'll have to make her another quilt with her friends and make sure she does get it. She was pretty cute when we were laying out the blocks as she was most vehement about not wanting any of the "boys" blocks on either side of her....just wanted to be between her two best friends, Olivia and Lauren.....if only that aversion to boys would last till they graduated from College her dad wishes.

So although I constantly think I'm through quilting, something like this happens and I get all charged up to make "more quilts"..... and then there's always that wicked new fabric coming out that further draws me in and keeps me charged up. I guess there are worse obsessions.