Field Trip to Fabric.com

I finally made it. When I moved back to this area two years ago, I had grand plans to make it to Fabricdotcom for their twice annual warehouse sale. But it seems like something always came up -- I was out of town or the kids had a ballgame. This time I told dh that I was planning to go and that he was on his own with the kids for the morning.

Here was the line when I arrived at 8:55 am (the sale goes from 9:00am to 2:00 pm.)


I'm guessing there were at least 150-200 people in front of me. Some of these folks had big carts with them. I learned a few things: 1) take someone with you to stand by your cart so you can go grab bolts, (kind of a tag team deal), 2) people grab stuff fast, so try to be there early, 3) everything good is gone by 9:30.

I was in search of some silk dupioni for my bedroom curtains and I was excited to find bins with several rolls for sale. However, somebody grabbed my color first. I'll admit I was tempted to trip her and shove her over and fight her for it, but she had a kid with her, so well, I restrained myself . . .

I bought some olive corduroy (pants for ds) chocolate brown cotton/lycra stretch jersey, and some white prequilted knit, suitable for dyeing. I also got a fabric.com coffee mug, a cute mini iron, a tomato pincushion for dd (who is going to take sewing lessons soon), and a free measuring tape for completing a survey.

Here is a picture of the cutter measuring my fabric:

Massive table, huh? Also notice the yellow sheet to keep us from pillaging.

Another interior shot:


They had all the *regular* fabric wrapped off with shrink wrap or covered with tarps to keep us out of it. I think all fashion fabric was $3 yd (what I bought). There were silk scraps by the pound (crazy quilter's delight y'all) and cotton prints by the pound. I saw quite a few people buying cotton prints, more quilters I suppose.

There was quite a bit of home dec fabric too, but the silk was all I was interested in.

I got to meet Kristl, and took a picture with her, but I'm telling you, I look like h@ll in it, so I'm too vain to post it. She looks cute, I promise, but I'm too lazy to crop, sorry. The Evil One wasn't there.

It was fun, but you've gotta get up early in the mornin' and put on those running shoes if you're gonna score.