MCC Sale and Quilt

This year was a special one at the MCC Sale!  I have made many quilts, comforters and crocheted blankets, both for my own kids and also for friends, but I have never made one to sell or auction.  This year, I did!  Rewind a year ago, my friend Christa and I were chatting about how neat it would be to make a quilt out of all the MCC Run for Relief shirts (a 10k/2-mile run that happens every year at MCC sale...a run that our families have participated in for almost 20 years in a row).  Last year was the Run's 30th anniversary, therefore, 30 shirts.  The logo had never changed, just the colors.  It would be the perfect time to make a quilt, an even number of shirts!

Well, if you know me well, you know that I love to think up, and often verbalize, these grandiose plans of mine (next year we'll visit Yellowstone, for our 10th anniversary we'll go back to Maui, etc).  However, many of these plans are just ideas, fun to think about but often placed on the back burner due to money or time constraints.  Well, Christa is one "busy beaver", and when she gets an idea that seems like a good one, she finds a way to make it happen.  So...unbeknownst to me, she contacted Steve Penner, the race coordinator, and told him of our idea and asked him to start the search for all 30 shirts.  By August, he had located one from each year!  The next week she excitedly told me that she had found all the shirts, had told the MCC Sale coordinators about the quilt as well, and they wanted it done by October to take pictures of it and feature it in this year's brochure!  What...?!  My life with four children (one of them recently adopted in June, had been full with other things, and I had totally forgotten about the quilt idea).  But I had told Christa I would do it with her, she'd already done a ton of the leg work, it was time for me to keep my word!  Let's make this quilt!

Well, the October deadline came and went because, let's be honest, we are busy moms with lots of kids!  But we got it done in time to send to our friend, Chris Schneider, for the quilting part before bringing it home to bind and getting it to the MCC store by the March 1st deadline!  Before taking it to the store, Christa and I took it out the FPU track where the race is held to take some pictures first.  Here it is...

Here we are on Friday night in front of the quilt!

 Saturday morning was the run...look at all those kids ready to run!

We moms like to run too (well, I walked with Isaiah, the other moms ran)!

Didn't even get a photo of the real runners (Aaron and Randy, who both ran the 10k...and a PR for Aaron...way to go Wiens)!

After being at the sale for four hours Friday night, a late bed time, up again at 6:15 to come for the run, and about a half dozen zwiebach stuffed in him, who wouldn't want to take a nap?! 

So there it is, on the table ready to be auctioned off!  I was hoping the quilt would go for a lot...but what is a lot?!  Well, praise the LORD, someone bid $2600 to take this quilt home!  Amazing!  Christa and I were amazed and humbled that we could make something that would help donate so much money to MCC, an organization we love and support!  Thanks to those of you that helped us find shirts, fabric, iron, quilt, bind, watch our kids while we sewed, and came out to watch the quilt be auctioned, not to mention spending time and money at the Sale!  To God be the glory, great things He is doing through the work of Mennonite Central Committee!