Adventures in e-marketing

 I decided to devote this afternoon to adding a few things to the museum's EBay listings. A donation box from a few months ago included an amazing stash of vintage women's handkerchiefs, items that were both kind of nifty and totally useless. I mean, one or two colorful floral ladies' hankies might be neat to have around for if we ever dress a mannequin as June Cleaver (or her equivalent) so she could have it tucked in a pocket or sticking out of the end of a sweater sleeve, but there's no way the museum needs to keep a stash of 30 or 40 of them.

When the handkerchiefs first emerged from the box my first thought was to figure out a fair price and buy them myself. Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away I saw a remarkably nice quilt made from ladies' hankies. I believe the original pattern was in a women's magazine in the 1960s. It involved folding the hankies to form butterfly wings, appliqueing them to a backing, and then adding details like antennae with embroidery. It was nice. I saw the hankies stash, had flashbacks to the quilt Betty flaunted several decades ago, and briefly fantasized about chasing down the pattern and doing something similar.

Thanks to the wonders of Google, I did find the pattern. There are actually multiple options for turning cheap handkerchiefs into quilt tops. Then sanity prevailed. I have a remarkably high stack of UFOs now. Did I really need to add another Unfinished Object to that pile? 

No. 

So I took a lot of photos of handkerchiefs, measured them, and then kind of shoved the stack to one side. Recent adventures in cataloging made me realized something had to be done with the hankies. They needed to stop taking up space on the table in the office. They either needed to go into PastPerfect and then a drawer somewhere or they needed to get listed for sale. The latter seemed like the better option, considering that the museum really, really needs to build up enough money to have the building re-roofed. Besides, how long could it take to list a few dozen handkerchiefs on EBay, especially when they'd be listed in lots and not individually?

As one might anticipate, it ate up the entire afternoon. 

The good news is that one lot sold within an hour of getting listed so it wasn't a totally wasted day.

If I ever do decide to make a quilt like this, I have learned brand new ladies' handkerchiefs are available on-line in packs of 30. Are they being used for crafts or are there still people out there who haven't figured out that Kleenex exists?