Sunday Stash: Fabric Shopping in New England

 It's time to share my fabric shopping!  I missed New England quilts stores so much.  In Colorado, I really don't have "stash enhancement" shopping trips; I only visit my LQS if I need something very specific.  Colorado stores near me don't have good sales and hefty sales taxes make full price fabric close to $13 a yard.  So while in New Hampshire for the summer, I really indulged in lots of fabric shopping!  I didn't realize how much I missed buying fabric in person instead of just completing online orders.

So here's the outside of one of my favorite places: Marden's.  It's a discount store much like Big Lots: lots of junk.  But they are also the world's largest fabric liquidator and sell fabric for no more than $5 a yard.  I did really well there when Nick and I visited there at the beginning of our weekend getaway to North Conway, NH to celebrate our 10 year anniversary.

So here's what I chose: the rose fabrics in the middle are some of my favorite fabrics of all time- I had previously used up my precious half yards and was so happy to find more!

 I allowed myself to get a few novelty/juvenile prints in anticipation of someday making items for an Etsy store (more on that in another post).

On the way home from our trip we had planned to drop by the famous Keepsake Quilting.  It turned out that we had inadvertently arrived in the midst of their famous tent sale!  While living in Massachusetts, I never made the effort to go to the tent sale because it was always on a weekday and that was a stage of life when my babies were really young and it wasn't practical to attend.  So I was pretty happy to be able to go and get some bargains, but if we had known about the tent sale, I probably wouldn't have bought so much fabric at Marden's just a few days before.

Nick was a great sport about it though:

The tent sale is quite a crazy event- women park and sleep overnight to take advantage of the deals the next day.  The lines to pay were very long and moved at a snail's pace.  One poor soul fainted while waiting in line.  We met a group of ladies who had chartered a bus to attend the sale but started panicking when the bus driver insisted that they had to abandon their selections and get back on the bus to return home.  Luckily, many women agreed to let them go ahead in line so that they could pay and not leave empty handed.

These are the fabrics that I bought off the sale bolts.  The prices were between $3-5 per yard.

These are the fabrics that I chose from the boxes and packages available.  Good choices for sashing and backing I think.  The prices ranged from about $2.30 per yard to $4 per yard.

On another weekend, my mom sent me to a nearby yard sale she'd heard about that she knew I would be interested in.  It was being held by a retired fashion design instructor from a local technical high school who was moving.  All of her cuts of fabric were $1 a piece.  I grabbed many cuts of vintage cottons, knits, stretch lace, canvas, linen, and TONS of interfacing!  Not all of it is pictured, but here's a sampling:

Closeup of quirky vintage cotton:

My best score was a huge bag of zippers.  These are the kinds of zippers I use all of the time and the whole bag was about $5.  I've already used seven of the zippers.

Finally, I visited with my friend Hema, a friend from my days in the BMQG.  Just after she moved, she opened an Etsy shop and I was fascinated and intrigued to learn about her business.  These are the choices I made from her shop (the two larger cuts are organic knits!  Eep!).  It seems that her shop is on vacation, but I will update with a link to her shop upon her return.

Yep, I did a lot of fabric shopping over the summer.  Fabric is definitely my favorite souvenir!  I love the possibilities and potential it all holds.  Linking up to Sunday Stash at Molli Sparkles.

P.S.  You might be curious how I got it all home.  We flew on Southwest with two free bags per ticketed passenger, so it really wasn't a problem :)