Quilt Auction

Months of planning went into this biennial event for the Friendship Quilter's Guild of Poway, CA. There were 95 quilts up for auction as well as some wonderful Silent Auction Gift baskets. This is our biggest fund-raiser and it was well-planned. Guild members donate their quilts or quilt tops which are quilted and bound by other guild members.



I donated 3 quilts plus quilted 5 or 6 of them for the guild. Setup started at 8 AM with us setting up tables and quilt-hanging racks. Some of the larger quilts. including some bed-size quilts were hung on racks so people interested in bidding on an item could see the front and the back of the quilt up close and personal.




As bidders arrived, they were issued an auction paddle and given the auction docket showing the quilt number, name, and size. After the crowd had a chance to view the quilts, the quilt were taken down, folded with the number facing out and lined up for presentation by the auctioneer. Our auctioneer was Jim from Central Sewing. He is a seasoned auctioneer. I was assigned to be his spotter even though the auditorium was fairly small. I did not know that the spotter is supposed to run from bidder to bidder and whoop and holler to get the bidders fired up about the bidding process.


When Jim explained this after the auction, I had an Ah-Ha moment back to the Audacious Auction at MQS 2008 when the spotters were CEOs of the companies that build those big quilting machines (APQS, Gammill, A-1, Nolting) The theme of MQS 2008 was Tropical Paradise so everybody was wearing Hawaiian shirts, grass skirts and coconut bras. Picture these executive dressed up in a grass skirt running from one side of the huge banquet hall to the other holding up quilts for bidders to bid on. I laughed until I cried. It was certain audicious and so much fun. It is a don't-miss event.


We also had our raffle quilt on hand for the raffle. The winning ticket was drawn at the end of the auction. There were also door prizes galore. I bid on and won a pink footstool in the silent auction. It is the perfect size for my 2-year old grand-daughter, Maidson.




We had stations set up for the silent auction, the cahs-out and quilt retrieval station and of course, a refreshments station loaded up with all manner of baked goods and water bottles.