I love this quilt. I want to make one for my sister who moved to TX and married her first love after being apart for 35 years...and they are living happily everafter.

That is just so sad. They didn't realize what they were worth.

I've donated several quilts to various schools for fund raisers, my daughter & sister are teachers & their schools need money, and also the schools my grandchildren attend.
I've realized that if the quilts are raffled they bring in much more money then when auctioned, people are willing to spend a dollar on a raffle ticket but can't afford to bid a high amount. I'm not involved with the fund raising committees of any of these schools but wish I could influence them to raffle, not auction. One school raffled the first quilt I donated, brought in $800, but then they decided to go to auction, the quilt this year only made $70 at auction. Next year I'll probably just donate money unless they go back to raffle.

maire - I also strongly support raffles over auctions.

I coordinate an annual "community quilt" project where different people do a block and I put them all together for a fundraiser for our scholarship fund. We usually end up with two lap quilts instead of one larger quilt. Based on going rates for making custom quilts, each of ours would be worth about 300$. Because they raffle them, we bring in about $1500 to $1600 each year for two of them. Much better return than an auction.

What a heartbreaking story!

I've only donated quilts to be used, not to be sold. However, as a customer, I'm much more likely to buy raffle tickets.

I just received an update from the coordinator of the event. This quilt went for $255 and a smaller scrappy quilt went for $85.

It didn't end up so bad but I stil question whether to do it again next year.

our guild ran into this same thing and voted not to do charity quilt for auctions again....large quilt, quilting was donated, went for practically nothing.

Hi, I have had similar experiences with quilts I have donated to help various organizations. The quilts were nice but not "art" quilts but to have them go for less than what you pay for the fabric is disconcerting. I guess if you don't quilt or do hand crafts, you really don't understand the amount of time involved or how much fabric, thread, yarn, etc costs. I would donate the cash instead and donate to children's hospitals and women's shelters instead. At least you would know that someone is being held close by your gift (and kids and others really appreciate those "handmade hugs").

Ugh. That hurts, doesn't it? :(

The thing with donating is you're giving it freely. Once you give, it's not yours anymore. If they have no idea what "the going rate" for quilts are, they are unable to price accordingly, kwim? So, it's a sad situation. What you COULD do is donate the quilt for a raffle-type situation, which kinda helps you to not know "what they got" for the quilt and people are kinda dropping money on the dream of having the quilt (and other items). A person might buy $10 in raffle, but if 100 other people did that, it's $1000.

Or, like someone else does, give the quilt to an organization that gets it to people that NEED it, and not just WANT it.

Personally I would continue to make them, but use simpler pattern and give a suggested price (cost to make) so I didn't have so much invested. If the quilt is made/designed by the persons at the care center (colored blocks, hand prints, applique, etc) there seems to be more interest. Also I agree raffle seems to bring more income. Especially if there are multiple prizes. At my daughters school we had a drawing (raffles are illegal here) and each grade donated one prize, so you had a chance to win one of 5 prizes for each ticket.