While visiting with Dr. MacDowell, we met one of her colleagues who had just been to an Amish consignment auctions at which the quilters themselves receive most of the sale price.  Dr. MacDowell produced a flier from a 1990 sale from her filing cabinet.  We had been unaware of consignment auctions.  How had we missed knowing of these sales?  How common are they?  Where are they held and for how long have they been going on?  And more important for our study, what can they tell us about Relief Sales quilts produced and donated by Amish quilters? 

By coincidence upon our return Marilyn's cousin, Mike Klaus, had forwarded a newspaper clipping from the May 9, 2004 Wisconsin State Journal about an Amish sale in Amherst, Wisconsin. The article, “Amish quilt auction continues even though community left,” by Susan Lampert Smith, stated that the semi-annual Amherst Quilt and Craft Auction was Wisconsin’s largest and longest continuing Amish sale.  Even though the Amish community left that area several years ago, the sale continues to sell quilts sent to them by Amish women from settlements from Pennsylvania to Texas.  This year’s sale featured about 500 Amish quilts.  According to the “cryer” of the sale, Bob Mader, quilts are selling for less in recent years.  He thinks one reason are the “patchwork” quilts from China that only have the appearance of being homemade that are being sold at “big box stores.”   “We’re actually seeing quilts from Taiwan that say ‘Amish-inspired,’ says Mader, “but you can tell the difference in the stitching.”   

Are imported quilts affecting the prices at relief sales, too?  Are differences in quality a concern of casual quilt buyer?  Are such characteristics such as originality, authenticity, heritage, and the work environment in which the quilt was made concerns of most buyers?   How many quilt buyers consider who benefits from the sale of a quilt? Does the increasing availability of  imported quilts impact not only sale prices but also what the public finds meaningful about buying and caring for a quilt?

The value of women’s networking was again proven when later that same day when we drove into Indiana and decided to follow up on Dr. MacDowell’s suggestion we look up Amish/Mennonite quilt expert, Rebecca Haarer.  Haarer is a quilt collector, an expert on Amish quilts, and an antique shop owner in Shipshewana, Indiana.  We found her shop and were impressed by the quality and quantity of vintage quilts.  As Marilyn was looking through “orphan quilt blocks” (blocks that never made it into a quilt), the woman who asked whether she could help turned out to be Rebecca herself.  When we introduced ourselves and our project, she exclaimed, “I’ve heard of you!”  She said she knew of our project not through Mennonite circles, but as a member of the National Quilting Association, our first grant source.  (photo of “orphan” quilt squares from Rebecca’s shop)  Some of Rebecca’s collection can be seen in Rachel and Kenneth Pellman’s book, The World of Amish Quilts (Intercourse, Pennsylvania:  Good Books).

Was or is there anything that makes a quilt Amish or Mennonite in terms of design, color, quality, or use?  In what ways have Relief Sale quilts maintained or altered the experience of their quilters, including the reasons women say they quilt for MCC?