Wednesday Excursion: Let’s help Sue

Things happen to me all the time that I can never quite explain….or maybe I should say, the blog takes me places that I never imagined I’d go.  Wednesday was one of those days for me.

Earlier in the week I got a call from a lady in the neighboring town.  She saw that I was auctioning off a hand stitched quilt on the blog and the proceeds were going to help with my charity quilting project.  (Remember that ends tonight so if you’re wanting to bid, bid now!)  When I last looked Sandra had the bid at $150.

That makes me super excited as just this week I’ve spent that in postage.  Can you believe it??  These four boxes went out to Quilts of Compassion, binders and longarmers…it was $109 in postage!!

Then I had another set of boxes go out to volunteers who said they would sew a few projects I had laying around here and donate them back for charity quilts.  That was another $43.  I always ship the cheapest method but it adds up so quickly.

Anyway…the lady who called me said that she knew of someone who had a couple hand stitched quilt tops and wondered if I might be wanting to auction them off on the blog with some of the proceeds being able to be used for my charity quilt projects.  Well that sounded wonderful.

She talked to her friend and we made an appointment to get together on Wednesday..and by the way she said, my friend has some other quilts she wants you to see.

I’m cleared to drive now… (happy, happy face!!!)  So off I went on Wednesday not having any clue of where this adventure would take me.

It took me to Sue’s house.  Sue is wearing the white shirt.  She is downsizing from her big beautiful home to a retirement community.  She had a stack of quilts she wanted to show me….I should have but didn’t take pictures of all of them…

Her friend Bernadette is wearing yellow.  She’s a fellow quilter.  She brought a couple of her quilts along and they are amazing.  She does awesome work.

Anyway…back to Sue’s story.  Here’s what I remember.

Sue’s husband, who has passed away, had an uncle that lived in town.  He never had any children.  The uncle’s mother lived in town and when she passed, they didn’t have an auction, the uncle and his wife simply moved into the house.  They lived there for years and eventually the uncle and his wife passed.  The executor of the will lived in Florida and didn’t want to deal with the estate so Sue’s husband ended up in charge.  Together Sue and her husband went through the house and prepped the contents of the house for an auction.  The things sold as did the house.

As they were doing one of the final walk throughs of the house Sue noticed a door and closet that no one had ever seen before.  In it were quilts.  The auction had already passed so Sue took the quilts home and put them in a trunk she owned.  They simply stayed there.  Sue thinks either the uncle’s mother or the aunt’s mother made the quilts but she is not sure.

In the stack were two wool crazy stitched quilts and about five others.  One being the gorgeous beauty on the chair by Sue.  It has a saw tooth border and is in mint condition.  The backing was a very pretty yellow.

This trip around the world is another of the quilts…  AMAZING..right???

The quilt looks like it was made yesterday only entire hand stitched and hand quilted.  Simply AMAZING.

There was a pink and white beauty…a mint double wedding ring…an old applique that shows a bit of wear but AMAZING too.

I was completely awestruck…COMPLETELY.  If anyone is looking for mint shaped antique quilts, these are it.

Although Sue is having an auction in a bit, she just doesn’t feel the right place to re-home these is an auction.  She just doesn’t want to see that by some fluke they end up going for $100 each.  You all know auctions, it can happen.  She wondered if I had any idea of what to do with them.

Her children are completely not interested at all….(Sad face).  (I did suggest she could adopt me.)  HA!!  Her home was filled with unique pieces besides the quilts.  She told several stories about how she acquired some of the items.  I told Hubby at supper last night that I am going to Sue’s auction.  I am going to buy something and then I am going to find her and have her tell me the story that goes with the piece.  I LOVE the stories that go with the pieces.

Anyway…does anyone have ideas on how to best sell these quilts??  I felt so bad for Sue…She wants them to have a good home but also wants to get a fair price them too.  A few years back Sue had a Mennonite lady access them for value for insurance purposes and then the  values at that time were at least $300 each.  Honestly, I think they are worth more.

If no one has a better idea, Sue is considering having me sell them for her here on the blog.  I can do that, but even then, I’m a little afraid Sue won’t get the best value.  They truly are in mint condition.  The workmanship is so good. The double wedding ring and both Trips around the world look like they were done yesterday…but they are antiques.

So tell me what you think….anyone have any suggestions to help Sue??