Quack Quack

I recently donated a basket to Connor's preschool for their annual auction. I knit a white infant sweater (they requested gender neutral) with ducky buttons down the front, and I did a white hat with and clipped on a little hair clip I'd made (easily removable if the set was purchased for a boy). I also sewed flannel ducky material down the centers of three burp rags, and made 10 ducky-themed cards. Last, I included two rubber duck toys. I was sooo excited about this set, and the few people who saw it in advance were really going crazy over it. I expected it to do really well.

Come the night of the auction, Dan and I were perusing all the baskets in the silent auction, and I come across my donation. My heart sunk when I saw how they'd wrapped it all up. You couldn't see the fronts of the cards, the hat was buried at the bottom, the duck toys were hidden, and you could barely see the sweater (and they had it all folded so that you couldn't see any of the raised detailing on the sleeves or waist edge). Of course, there were no bids. I was extremely frustrated to have spent that much time making everything, only to have it shoved in a tiny basket and not displayed in a way that would show it off and make people want to bid on it! One of my good acquaintances came up behind me and saw the problem and took it upon herself to undo the wrapping of the basket and pull it all out so people could see everything. Not 30 seconds later, an announcement was made that that table would be closing in ten minutes. Three bids came through in that ten minutes, but most people had already come and gone from the silent auction area by that point, so everything in the basket only went for $38. In all honesty, I would have MUCH rather just handed them $40 and called it good, and saved the donation to gift to someone down the road... After the table was closed, I heard quite a lot of people commenting that they would have bid on the basket in a heartbeat if they'd known all what was in it!! GRRRRRR!! In the end, it brought $38 to the preschool that they didn't have otherwise, and the basket went to an extremely nice family, so I can't complain, but STILL, it's disappointing to put that much effort and excitement into something and then have it fall rather flat, by no fault of my own...

I do not have good lighting in my home, so excuse the bad coloring. The knit stuff is a nice bright white in reality




The burp rags


again, poor lighting... The cards are bright white with a nice bright yellow for the duck (light orange for the duck bill, and real feather tips for the wings)


Not to toot my own horn, but the ducky-themed basket was ADORABLE!