This Year's Mennonite Country Auction

Many years ago, when I was not even a teenager, our family took a day trip to Amish country in Ohio. We somehow ended up at Lehman’s Hardware on the same day that Mennonite Central Committee was holding its relief sale. All I remember from that day were the clotheslines strung with beautiful quilts, but it is a sight that has stayed with me. And because life is funny that way, now I belong to a Mennonite church and I help out at the relief sale in Ritzville, WA.

I headed over to Spokane on Friday morning. Tourist season is (mostly) over and traffic was light. I met a friend of mine at Pink Thread Fabric in Couer d’Alene, Idaho. This is a new store and both of us wanted to check it out. The store is small, with only one line of quilting fabric, but they had quite a bit of apparel fabric. I bought two yards of a very pretty hot pink rayon Swiss dot-type fabric. I want to support fledgling businesses, especially ones carrying apparel fabric. I hope the owner is able to make a go of it.

After that, I headed to the Quilting Bee in Spokane, where I did not buy fabric. I am trying to put a moratorium on fabric purchases. I need to sew up the stash, first. It is not a bad thing that Joanns is out of business and Walmart has eliminated most of its remnant racks. I did buy some machine embroidery supplies and bag hardware.

On Saturday, I drove out to Menno Mennonite church, which literally sits in the middle of acres of potato fields. Two of the members of our church own a processing company here in Kalispell that makes products under the label Redneck Sausage. (If you’re in the Pacific Northwest, many of the grocery stores like Super 1 and Albertson’s carry it.) They bring ham, bacon, and a special apple German sausage to sell at the sale to help raise money. I run one of the cash registers. People start lining up around 8:30 to be able to buy from us as well as the cheese people whose booth is right next to us. It’s very hectic for about an hour but it is great fun.

After lunch—sausage on a stick and some New Year’s cookies—I went into the tent for the auction portion of the day.

The big attraction is the quilts, of course. In between selling the quilts, the auctioneers also auction off other items. My family will be interested to know that one poppyseed kolache sold for $1800. (That is not a typo.)

Sadly, the sale is dwindling in size. I am hearing rumors that it may not continue after another couple of years. The organizers are getting older and no one is stepping up to take their place. Hand-quilted quilts are getting hard to come by, so most are machine quilted. Many of the quilts in this year’s sale were quilted in Ohio or Pennsylvania and sent out for this sale. I donated a quilt, but it got there too late to make it into this year’s sale so they will keep it for next year’s sale. I will try to donate a few more. The quilts that were in the sale were lovely:

I was back on the road to Spokane by 3 pm. Margaret and Elaine, you were remembered fondly and we wished you could have been there with us.

On Sunday, I drove back to Kalispell via the alternate route, through north Idaho, and stopped at the processor to pick up part of our pork order to deliver to customers. I was home by 3 pm. The processor is still working on the smoked items and they will drive them down here next week so we can deliver the hams and bacon. I will be glad to have that done.

I’m teaching a machine mastery class today. The quilt store is going to be closed on Mondays from now through the spring, but the Monday classes that were already scheduled in October and November will be held as usual. I think it is a good thing for the owner and the staff to have a day off. They have been working very hard. And I should have some time to sew this week. The binding I ordered from Sailrite came over the weekend, so I’ll finish that Retro Sling Bag and see what new projects float to the top of the queue.