Kid in a candy shop…

I have been lamenting the upcoming move of our local JoAnn’s store.  It’s been so close and so convenient it will seem nothing short of tragic to have to make the trek (ok…it’s not actually that far of a drive…) over to the mall to get a fabric fix.

Of course, in the midst of all the sadness, something wonderful is coming out of the whole affair: liquidation sales!!  After marking down all patterns to 1.99 for the past week (I picked up a couple Burda and Vogue ones at that price since even on sale they never drop that low), I got an email last night from a ward friend mentioning that all patterns (except for Simplicity) had been lowered further to $0.25.

Wow.

I probably don’t need to say that we were, of course, standing there ready to walk in when they opened the doors at 9:00 this morning.  I had expected wild stampeding crowds, but, surprisingly, we had the pattern drawers to ourselves for the first half an hour. By the time the post-preschool-drop-off crowds (including a good ward friend: yay for patterns PLUS friend-time!!)--showed up a little after 9:30 we were most of the way through.

We were working through the drawers so quickly it was hard to process everything there was to see so I didn’t actually get a great feel for what we’d found until we got home and started spreading things out.  We spent just under $20 dollars (self-imposed budget so I didn’t walk out of there with EVERY pattern) and picked up over 70 patterns.  When they rang us up the “You Saved” part of the display read $975.

So if you’ve ever wondered what a thousand dollars worth of patterns looks like, here they are:

 

Kids patterns.  We already have a lot of kids patterns so I tried to find things that had something unique about them that we didn't already have in our pile of pretty little dress patterns.  I also looked for more things in the girls/childrens sizes rather than the toddler/baby stuff we've focused on up until now.  (Not to say there weren't still some baby things we couldn't in good conscience walk away from for a quarter!)  Surprise score?  A pattern for girls slips.

 

Mom patterns.  I don't make a lot of things for me, but maybe this will be a good excuse to do more.   I also picked up another copy of my favorite skirt pattern since the envelope I've used before is sized a little...too optimistically...for my actual waistline.  (P.S.  the "nun" patter you can only see part of also has a really neat pioneer pattern in it...just in case you were wondering...)

 

OK.  Maybe this is weird.  I also picked up a bunch of formal/wedding stuff. With three girls I figure having a few of these might come in handy eventually between proms and weddings and all of that.  I'm sure styles will come and go over the next two decades, but who knows what might come back around by then...right?  I figured it was especially worth it to pick up anything that had a modest option although I did also grab a few that weren't completely modest but seemed to have some interesting design options that could possibly be incorporated into something else. 

 

Finally, I grabbed just a couple of crafty things.  I don't do a lot of craft stuff from patterns (I tell myself it's because there are so many tutorials on line for free, but it might also be that I just don't do enough crafty stuff period...hmmm) but I figured I could splurge and spend $1.25 on that sort of stuff.  

 

Well, now that I feel something like a lottery-winner gabbing about my good-fortune, let me know if there's a pattern you'd ever like to borrow.  There's no way that even in several life-times of sewing I'll ever get through all of them, so it would be great to share.
 

Pattern fun for everyone!