Originally Posted by cricket_iscute

I go to the Vermont Quilt Festival every year, and my budget varies. Some years, I can buy whatever I want, within reason. Other years, I have to be more focused. One year, I bought no fabric at all. This year, I allowed myself to buy fabric only to go with a series of quilts - all from the same part of my fabric stash -- on which I'm working. I have been collecting fabric for this series for eight years now. This year, I bought four pieces of fabric yardage, two yards each, a dozen threads I needed from Superior Threads, and several books. I told myself that if I did not buy much there, I could afford the order of sale thread from Connecting Threads that I wanted and have now ordered.

In 2008 and 2009, when the economy was so bad, the vendors complained that they did not make enough sales to justify coming back. Some refused checks as one check was a large part of their sales then and if it bounced, they were in trouble. The Aurifil dealer was skittish about taking a $300 check from me; it was a bigger sale than all their other sales combined that year. I think all the vendors did better this year.