Fabric Acquisition Road Trip (F.A.R.T.)

Did I mention a F.A.R.T. ??  Well, there was a whole bus load of women from my guild (Ocean Waves Quilt Guild, Lewes DE)  who were involved in this activity!! Fabric Acquisition Road Trip!  Shopping for Fabric, far away from home.  A bus of 40 women!  All fun!!  We started out early on Thursday morning….some as early as 6 am; and of us at 6:30 and others at 7:30.  We had 3 pick up points and tons of fun!!  We laughed and chatted and stitched on our hand projects, played a little bingo with fabric as prizes, and by 10 am we were in Denver Pennsylvania at Burkholders Fabric.  (They have a great website too — Burkholders – Denver PA ).  Gene Martin greets our bus & leader Wendy, and gives our guild “PRESENTS” to take home for our door prizes, raffles and 2nd time around table.  He is unbelievably generous to our guild, and was a major sponsor of our Quilt Show last summer.  The other greeting you get when you pull into the parking lot is the “wagon” of fabric.

Burkholders Wagon of Fabric

It is my favorite place to shop!  You must have a plan though, because you are buying the entire bolt (usually 15 yards) for $3.99/yard.  I had to restrain myself at 1 bolt!  I had 3 in my arms, and sent a pix to the hubby

Buy the whole bolt @ 3.99/yard

…2 bolts looked too much like the “wrong” kind of trains….so I kept one, and then I went inside the store on a mission to “FIND MORE TRAINS!” …and boy did I have fun filling a cart with bolts of fabric.

10 different train fabrics

No, I resisted buying a whole bolt of each.  I only bought a couple of yards of each fabric.  There was a 20% discount on top of the special buy the bolt price.  I have a plan for all of it; and need to get busy!  I also picked up 5 orange fat quarters for my Quilt Bee (Material Girls) next week and a 1/2 yard of camping fabric for my “boy scout” Senior Quilt.

Our next stop was to Sauders Fabric Store; also in Denver PA. This physical store is “moving”  at the end of October as the property has been sold, and will become part of ZOOKS Fabric in Intercourse PA.  Sauders has a great website for shopping (Sauders/Zooks Fabric ). There, I found some nice “neutral” for my stash, and burgundy batik that I was looking for to complete a project.

Our third and final stop was in Intercourse PA at the Kitchen Kettle Village. First order of business was lunch at the Kling House. Then off to shop at Zook’s Fabric Store. That store is ready for the expansion that is happening with the consolidation of Sauders & Zook’s.  A new cutting area has been set up, the high tech bar code readers, computers etc are in for inventory control etc.  I love that the fabric at Zook’s is organized by “brand”.  If you are looking for something from MODA etc, you go right to that aisle.  Once you are in the brand aisle, it is organized in color waves.

There, I managed to pick up a piece of jade green to complement that burgundy batik project.  I also acquired some lovely Christmas Fabrics for another project – Quilted pillows for the sofa and a matching table runner too!

Christmas project fabric

I browsed around the Kitchen Kettle Village and never made it across the street to The Old Country Store!  Next time!  I have blown my fabric budget for the year.   We were back on the bus at 5:30 pm and home by 8:30. Our bus rides are fun, with snacks, movies and a bit of “adult beverage”.

Those train fabrics will be made up into “pillowcases” to be sold at the Delmarva Model Railroad Club annual open house this winter. Info here – DMRR Club website .   I should be able to sell them for enough to make back my purchase price and have a donation to the club as well.

Time to get busy for the day! Sewing must commence soon if I am going to meet the deadlines I have just acquired with all that fabric!!!

I have spent the bulk of the week working on my own scrap storage, and have the cutting table clear again! Yesterday I managed to get this done: