Most of you who read this blog are not local to me, so this post is for you! Yes, I went back to the Keepsake Quilting Annual Tent Sale (Center Harbor, NH) for the second and final day, but, this time, I remembered the camera! Yeay!
When the tent sale first opens at 8am on Friday, there are lines 4 persons deep that go all the way around the huge wrap-around porch of the building. People bring their own fold up sling chairs. The porch is scattered with very large open cardboard boxes of scraps with ziplock bags for stuffing by rolling or folding the scraps. Here is the view as I walked in from the further parking lot, with the two tents visible off to the far right.
A view of the porch with happy quilters busily stuffing $5 ziplock bags with scraps is here.
Inside the tent, there are cutting tables with clerks who slice off yardage from the tent bolts.They are mostly priced around $5 to $7 dollars per yard, $5.49 was common, and it is what I paid for a nice 2 yard hunk of Windham indigo. A post-it, with a hand written note of the price per yard and the amount of yardage that was cut, goes into the large clear plastic bag. One yard cuts are the minimum from the tent.
In the tent, there are many tables set up with kits, odd lots of notions, tubs of pre-cuts in baggies, too. When you have had your fill of shopping, you go inside the store to be rung up.
On Friday when I was there, there was a full chartered busload from Rhode Island, and then on Saturday, there was a different busload from Connecticut.
When I was waiting for only about ten minutes for one of the 6 store registers to open up to ring me out, I saw a woman spend over $400 and load her bags onto a slightly rusty vintage Red Flyer wagon to be able to get her haul to the car in the parking lot. The wagon was heaping!
The sale is an experience. I have heard rumors that folks fly in for it, but I can't confirm that.
When the tent sale first opens at 8am on Friday, there are lines 4 persons deep that go all the way around the huge wrap-around porch of the building. People bring their own fold up sling chairs. The porch is scattered with very large open cardboard boxes of scraps with ziplock bags for stuffing by rolling or folding the scraps. Here is the view as I walked in from the further parking lot, with the two tents visible off to the far right.
When I was waiting for only about ten minutes for one of the 6 store registers to open up to ring me out, I saw a woman spend over $400 and load her bags onto a slightly rusty vintage Red Flyer wagon to be able to get her haul to the car in the parking lot. The wagon was heaping!
The sale is an experience. I have heard rumors that folks fly in for it, but I can't confirm that.
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Wow, cool, Vic! Thanks for taking us along. I can't say as I would ever fly in just for that, but it might be fun sometime to time a visit to DD#1 with that sale. : )
Wouldn't have worked this year, though. They spent the weekend in Connecticut visiting relatives.
Thanks for sharing Vic. Paducah is the closest place for me to see that much fabric and I don't get there very often. Hope you didn't break the bank!
Ahh, so you did make the sale. The Windham Indigo probably made the trip worthwhile! It must be nice to live so close to Keepsake. Our little quilt shop had a $5 a yard sale after Christmas; very nice fabric, but not a big selection.
Oh what fun!
Thanks for showing us the pics Vic. Ahh, what's better than all that fabric & all those quilters. The indigo sounds wonderful. Hugs to Raven.
What fun! With extra savings because NH has no sales tax.
Wow! A wagon full...now that would be such fun!!
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