Auction Quilt

On the weekend, my son's school had a fair on and they had several activities in order to raise funds. Many classes had to prepare or donate something. Parents would then make a bid on it. There were many beautiful creations on display, many of them photographs of the children, quilts, paintings, trips with teachers, a car park lot at the school, recipe books compiled by the children with their photos in them. I was particularly taken by my girlfriend's artwork, she graduated from Princeton with a degree in Architecture and later on a Masters in Design from Harvard University. I loved her work so much that I wanted to bid on it; it was mixed media with coconut, recycled paper which she made and it was framed up in a beautifully. What stopped me from bidding was the children from Grade 2 had drawn their self portraits which I thought a parent was going to love buying for their own child.

Then, Matt suggested that I commission her to create something for us and I am very excited about it! Jenny and I will be meeting up sometime soon to talk about how much she is going to charge. This is what struck me: She is very confident in what she produces and is ready to be assertive when someone says, "May I commission you to make ...." whereas, I lose all confidence and do it for free, especially when friends ask me to create something for them. This is where my weakness lies. I know that I can take good photos, can create decent enough quilts but baulk when asked to sell my services.


Back to the auction. One of the things I bid for was a quilt. I liked it because it was quite a generic one, it was not class specific (some of the class quilts had their photos on it) It was a T-Shirt Quilt, with attractions from Singapore. I have always wanted to make myself a T-Shirt quilt with all the places that I have visited. Since there is a possibility of us moving from Singapore, I thought it would be a perfect purchase. I bid $50 and won! I am so happy because this definitely would have cost me more than $50 to make. The contribution was from a kindergarten class. The backing was made with Singapore Airlines trademark Singapore Girl uniform fabric. I love it!