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Quilting with eBay

© Jeanne Marsh

After having a computer for 8 years and being on the Internet for 7 years, I finally took the plunge into eBay. There was this book "Carrie Hall Blocks" by Betina Havig that I have eyed ever since it came out in 1999. It was priced just a little higher than I like to pay for a book so I thought I'd just wait a year or two and maybe I would find it priced lower. To my dismay it has gone UP in price and the book seemed to be a little further out of reach.

An email friend told me she had seen "Carrie Hall Blocks" for auction on eBay and the bidding would end in 2 days. I didn't know anything of how eBay works although one of my sons has had quite an active enterprise going on there for 5 or 6 years. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I thought and I read the instructions for joining and bidding on the eBay pages.

As soon as I found the auction page, I raised the current bid by $2. Someone outbid me. I raised again. Again I was outbid. Well, I thought I'd better wait til this bidding time is nearly up and I'll bid again. (Learned something there!) I did just that. I bid again about 20 minutes before the time was up and - - I won the bid. Got a brand new copy of "Carrie Hall Blocks" for $19.50. I was elated!

I saw that 24 vintage Dresden Plate blocks also were at auction with the bidding ending the next day. I anxiously waited to see how high they would go, and just before the closing of the bids, I tried $21.50. The photos of the blocks were outstanding, Dresden Plates on vintage (1930's) green outlined in black blanket stitch. An email came from eBay - - I had won the bid.

Both transactions had been fun, and the sellers mailed the articles to me as soon as they received my money orders. I am really enjoying this outstanding book, 800 historic blocks collected by Carrie Hall in the 1920's and 1930's, all in color as displayed in the Spencer Museum of Art, Univ. of Kansas. Two hundred blocks have templates and block construction directions. I highly recommend it.

I'm planning to sash and border the vintage blocks with yellow for a small quilt. I will start on that just as soon as I finish this "Trip Around the World" I'm doing for our daughter-in-law. I know I told you last month I wanted that done by May 1st so I'm just a wee bit late. I'm

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