Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale

Today I'm in Harrisonburg, Va. for the Virginia Mennonite Relief Sale, for which my favorite part is the auction of over 100 quilts, some beautiful, some more functional than "wow" quilts. The quilts are displayed with tags identifying the number (which indicates approximately the time of that item's auction), name, quilt-maker(s), etc. There was one particular quilt which interested me, but it's approximate auction time was 2:34pm today. I asked my Mother if she would be able to stay that long, and she obliged. It was a 1930's-made velvet crazy quilt, about a lap-size quilt, with hand stitching on the seams. It was beautiful, and I was willing to pay up to a certain amount. Well, when the bidding started on this one, it very quickly exceeded $1,000, and not too long to get to $2,000. My plan was to jump into the bidding once it slowed down, and of course was under my upper limit, but the bidding was so fast, and exceeded my limit too fast, so I did not bid even once on it. I felt so bad that I had kept my Mother there until 3pm when we arrived at 8:30am. There was a small quilt earlier in the day that I had bid on, and I thought that I was the highest bidder. But they ended the bidding and gave the bid to someone else, so I guess they auctioneer did not see me as I thought he did. It was a small quilt in yellows made from feed sack fabrics. As I child, I recall the feed sack fabrics we'd get from the chicken feed for the farm. It would have been a nice little quilt to have, but I did not feel like making a big deal of it and asking to restart the bidding. Even though I did not bring a quilt home this time, I had a good time watching the process, seeing some beautiful quilts, and seeing folks I had not seen in a while.