Today’s work in progress quilt is one I’ve been calling the “Auction Quilt.” (Any suggestions for a better name? Seriously, I need to name it something for the auction program … )

Every year in October, on the feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch, my church does a dinner dance and live auction fundraiser to raise money for its ministries. This year, perhaps for the first time, they will be auctioning a quilt. A quilt that I’m donating. Eek. It’s a bit of a gamble since we’ve never tried to auction one before, and I’m sure we’ll get a fraction of its worth. I guess that’s always the dilemma when quilting for a cause. Still, part of me hopes to raise lots of money just to prove it can be done!

When I chose the pattern, I tried to think back to quick, easy quilts that my coworkers and I had done recently. We had just made the Gator’s Club quilt from the book Quilts from Textured Solids by Kim Schaefer for a sick coworker. It’s an adaptation of a rail fence block quilt, which got me to thinking how I could adapt the rail fence block too. I checked out Google and Pinterest, then I got out some graph paper and went to town, making the whole thing overly complicated. Alternate and inverted directions, color gradations, sections where I tried to make cross shapes (since it’s for a church) … when I got to the point where I couldn’t piece the rows without slavishly following my diagram, I knew I was golden.

The auction coordinator and I decided to stick to blue, green, and white because those are colors that people don’t have strong opinions on. Orange, purple, and pink tend to be “love it or hate it.” I added a “no flowers” caveat  (that I later broke.) Basically, we wanted the widest audience. Of course, later a friend told me, “If you don’t have strong opinions about blue and green, that means you don’t love them either.” Another friend said the quilt looked like something a grandma would love and a grandpa wouldn’t object too (thanks, I think?).

Lots of dilemmas when you’re trying to maximize donations, really.

I’m actually pretty far on this one considering it isn’t due until October: the quilt top is now done, the pieced back has the jelly roll race section finished, and the binding is cut. Hallelujah!

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced Modern Quilts and Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story. If you do have name suggestions, I’d love to hear them in the comments! Thanks!