Over the last few days I’ve been following emails from three different quilt shops as they do their own version of a “stuff my stocking” promotion for Christmas. First I have to say that I did one of these last year, and it was fabulous fun. I took advantage of about half of the 12 deals that they offered, and had some neat things in my stocking on Christmas morning! So I was looking forward to the same this year. Well, things have not been so exciting this year … and I’ve got emails coming in from THREE DIFFERENT shops!
So far NONE of the deals have been very interesting. One shop offered note cards, another one offered coffee mugs … not exactly the kind of quilting stuff I was looking to add to my stocking.
But what really baffles me are the shops offering rotary cutters and blades, cutting mats, etc. These are things that you can get at JoAnn Fabrics with a 40%, 50% or even the occasional 60% coupon! And even if you don’t have a JoAnn’s locally, you can buy it on-line and still get it for less than the quilt shop price even with the shipping cost!
I check in at my local JoAnn Fabrics frequently to see what’s there … and I generally never buy anything there without at least a 40% coupon. Between the ones they send me in the mail, the ones in the Sunday paper, and the ones that come through on the JoAnn’s app for my iPad, I can usually get about 3-4 items per trip. And if there’s something else that just happens to jump in my cart as I walk through the store, I can use my Quilter’s Club discount card to get 10%. I never buy fabric there – once you’ve used the quilt shop stuff, you just can’t switch over to the JoAnn’s stuff. But all of the notions, batting, pillow forms, zippers, storage bins, magazines (ones that I don’t already subscribe to), etc., all come from JoAnn’s.
If I can save $$ in certain areas of my quilting obsession, I’ll have more $$$ to spend on things at the quilt shops!
P.S. While I do buy all of my cutting items at JoAnn’s, I switched over to Creative Grids rulers a few years ago and use those now exclusively. Those are only available at quilt shops. I put my original (yellow) rulers in my travel bag so they are still being used occasionally.
So true, occasionally I will find fabric for an apron to wear when I serve Wed night dinners for the children or for giving quilts for babies in the hospital.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started quilting I bought three yards of everything; it took a long time to go through all that fabric with lots of charity sewing being done. Now it's quilt shop only but as their prices go up my projects seem to get smaller. I recently switched to Olfa rulers after taking a precision sewing class.