advice needed on making a quilt for auction
 

My children's school is going to be holding an auction next year (Feb. '13) and I offered to provide a quilt. Seemed like a simple plan until my brain began churning with questions:

what size is best?

simple design or more intricate?

can I use a copyrighted pattern?

all pieced or some applique?

what colorway?

is gender neutral best?

If you've made, sold, or bought a quilt at auction, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

I can't answer your questions, but consider a raffle instead of an auction. Raffles generally bring in more money than auctions and you'll hit a much wider audience.

I would do something spring like and simple. I agree with the raffle idea, people will buy a dollar ticket,but very few will have a lot of money to bid very high.

As one who has BTDT, I would recommend a good size lap quilt. I also agree with doing a raffle vs. auction if that is an option. When I did this I went for a patriotic theme. Used a published pattern that I had purchased. Did star blocks in white, blue/white background and red binding with red/white/blue backing. Was very well received and raised a reasonable amount of $$ for the small audience we had to work with. My personal opinion, in doing something patriotic, you won't have as many folks looking at the quilt and while thinking it is lovely, saying to themselves...'but those colors don't work in my house'. Just about everyone is willing to having something patriotic in their homes.

I have made 2 quilts for raffles, ( and I agree raffles will bring in more money). One of them was a queen size quilt and it was a green and brown tube quilt, easy to put together. The other one was a twin, simple red and blue and white star quilt. I was worried that they would not buy as many tickets if it was just a twin, but it brought over $375.00. The queen brought in around 350.00. I realized through this is that people don't buy or bid on a quilt due to the size. If they like the colors and pattern then they buy the tickets. I would not make a big one, just because it is expensive to make and you can make just as much with a smaller quilt. You also need to be careful with color selection and a more neutral color palette would probably be received better.
Best of luck, you have plenty of time to make one. Keep it simple is my advice, Beth

For an auction and a small group consider a bed runner or a lap size. For a raffle, consider a queen. I will only do raffles any more. Have been stung by silent auctions.

I agree that a raffle would be better than an auction to raise funds. However, if it must be an auction then I would keep it simple. You don't want to put 80 hours into something that will only sell for $100.
The last one I made for an auction was a twin size. I used one precut turnover (triangles) and used some yardage that coordinated with it. Just made a bunch of HST's and layed them out randomly with the odd solid colour block.
The bidders loved it, and it only cost me about 6 hours of time.

Thank you all for your input. I don't believe a raffle is going to be an option. The auction will have both silent and "live" items available and the lady who's volunteered to be the auctioneer will do an excellent job. Of that I'm fully confident. She's not only a parent at the school but is a local t.v. personality and will get the job done to encourage items to go for a good price.

I appreciate the advice on pattern type and colorway. Since we're in Oregon, I'm thinking maybe blues, greens, and a little bit of brown thrown in. If it's alright to use a copyrighted pattern for this type of thing, I may search for a Northwest inspired pattern. Do you think that would be a good idea?

I agree that raffles are better unless you can get a lot of quilts to auction. We did a school theme quilt (queen sized) and so far have sold more than 3,000 $1.00 tickets. By school theme, I mean the high school is purple and white and the mascot Indians. We used a block of multiple types of 6 inch blocks and substituted in focal point block also in the school theme. Will try to get a picture to post. Of course, this district is wild about football so we have a good market. It took about 3 or 4 months to construct but we included embroidery and machine quilting.

Raffle is best, but if you have to auction, then advertise the quilt in order to bring in more quilt buyers.