Wishing you all...

a very happy, creative and successful year 2014.

(And wishing the blog some more member contributions...)

Call to Auction: Get Ready for The Grand Gallery of Europe/Middle East's Contributions

In one of her recent messages, Martha Sielman posted the total analysis of the results of this year's Benefit Auction. These are the data provided by Martha, which I copied directly from her message:

Here is the analysis of this year's Benefit Auction purchases:

389 pieces were sold raising $65,575.
32 pieces were unsold (7.6% of the 421 total donated).

DISTRIBUTION BY DATE
Online week 1 totals = $18,900
Online week 2 totals = $15,000
Online week 3 totals = $19,100
Houston totals = $12,575
*All totals include pieces sold later through SAQA Store.

PRICE POINT INFO
$750 - 18 pieces     ($13,500)       1 Houston
$550 -   4 pieces     ($2,200)         0 Houston
$350 - 31 pieces     ($10,850)       8 Houston
$250 - 37 pieces     ($9,250)         5 Houston
$150 - 90 pieces     ($13,500)     23 Houston
$100 - 24 pieces     ($2,400)       24 Houston
$75 - 185 pieces     ($13,875)     27 Houston

188 purchasers purchased an average of 2.1 pieces.
Average price - $168
Median price - $100
31 purchasers (including 17 in Houston) were not SAQA members (16% of all buyers). They purchased 43 pieces for a total of $4,925 (7.5% of sales).  They found the Auction by being at Houston, through member blogs, the QuiltArt list, and Pinterest.

Below is a summary of the SAQA Benefit Auction results since it started:

	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Number of pieces sold	139	231	229	269	293	379	389
Total raised	$27,250	$41,550	$47,350	$52,300	$53,075	$67,450	$65,575
Average price	200	180	207	194	179	178	168
Median price	150	150	150	150	150	100	100
Number of buyers	73	98	102	120	133	182	188
Non-members	14	21	19	18	25	25	31

*** end of Martha’s analysis ***

The development clearly shows that the number of pieces sold has increased significantly over the past seven years, as has the sum that has been raised for SAQA, even if the average price of individual pieces has gone down.

And it is clear there is a slowly growing audience of non-members out there who are buying more pieces – this should be a definite incentive for any of us to participate by donating a small quilt to the auction, and getting our art work out into the world behind the SAQA scene as such.

This is a call to all members of the region Europe/Middle East to start planning their little quilt for 2014. The first call to auction by e-blast or newsletter from the board will be on us before we even know that the holidays are over!

When planning and sewing, take a few photos, and a few notes, and let the blog moderator know that you want to be included in The 2014 Grand Gallery of Europe/Middle East’s Contributions to the SAQA benefit auction.

My plans were triggered while I was clearing out my scrap box, and looking at leftovers from a quilt I had just finished. And I intend to sit down to work just after Christmas.

Happy planning!

Wanted: Co-Authors for the Blog

We are looking for members of the region Europe/Middle East who would like to become more active and help breathe more life into the blog.
Ideally, it would be at least one person from each country in the region who is willing to act as a kind of 'correspondent' for matters that are of relevance for the blog for their own country. That is, somebody from Netherlands would keep an open eye on the quilt/SAQA scene in Netherlands and post these on the blog independently from the blog-moderator.
Good knowledge of English is a must - although posts don't necessarily have to be in English. But there will be more people interested if that international lingua franca is used...

Interested? Send a mail to the blog address as given in the first post, or to Uta's mail address as given in the newsletter.