Bazaar quilt

This week I have the bazaar quilt and have to put a few more quilting stitches in. I think since I'm the only one with a walking foot that I am going to get the job of putting on the binding too. First to finish quilting.

Every year the kindergarten quilting group (about 6 of us... None of us have any children in the kindergarten. We are all getting to be grandparent age!) amaze ourselves by turning out a beautiful quilt. There haven't been too many that we didn't like and I think we are going on our 15th year. This year we were inspired by our visitor/friend Lorraine from Australia who showed us her beautiful button hole stitch applique back in January. We also had loads of leaders/enders so we made use of those. The quilting has been limited to just stitch in the ditch and some crosshatching in the squares but I think it is enough.

The kindergarten bazaar will be held on October 31st and the quilt will be handed over to the current kindergarten mothers to be included in their raffle (we assume this will be the first prize but you never know.) The younger mothers make coasters and bags and cushions and baby quilts etc. and there end up being quite a lot of raffle prizes.

For a couple years I went around selling tickets to English students and friends who had nothing to do with the kindergarten just thinking of this as a money raising project that would benefit the kindergarten. But somewhere along the line we realized that what the kindergarten mothers and children and teachers and everyone involved enjoyed most, was seeing WHO got the quilt. To be able to call out a name of someone everyone knew (it is a small kindergarten) to see the surprised looks and watch the hurried cell phone calls letting others know this year's winner, that was the really exciting part. The idea that

"Well, I didn't win the quilt but I'm so glad so-and-so did."

I think once we realized that we weren't out just for fundraising we stopped selling raffle tickets outside the kindergarten and this has become a "family" event. I'm sure more money could be raised if the raffling period was longer than the few hours on the bazaar day, or if more people were asked to buy tickets. Even some of you wonderful blog friends have asked if it is possible to buy raffle tickets, but for now this is a kindergarten bazaar event.

And each year all of us in the group think

"Maybe I'll buy a few more tickets than last year in hopes that I win it!"

But none of us ever do... You never know. This may be the first.