Went to my first Northeast PA Shop Hop shop, and oh boy...
I took the day yesterday to drive to the farthest quilt shop in our Northeast PA shop hop (Endless Mountains, and it sure felt like it!). Was thinking it would be about 1 1/2 hours, but took WELL over two. Walked in the door, and what do we find but UTTER chaos! You could literally cut the tension in the air. Lines all the way down the aisles (I'd say at LEAST 15 women per line), and only two people working. We literally put our name in the door prize drawing jar, and got in line to get our passports stamped & to purchase our block. Stood there for well over 1/2 hour, and at one point the two feisty older ladies behind us were very close to starting a riot! I'll tell ya, they were saying a lot of stuff that most of us there were thinking. LOL We stood there so long, in fact, that the ladies were actually taking turns walking to the back of the store to sit down.
The lady at the register was WAY too chatty, continually tried to sell fabric panels and give advice (which would be nice if the place was empty!), and at ONE point excused herself and left because she had to "go make up more passports". All of us in line were all like "You're kidding me." She was NOT kidding. As she cut the fabric she was bragging that Saturday was their busiest day EVER, but why then were there only two people working the next day?? There was no organization, and we stood behind women with bolts and bolts of fabric to be cut, even though all we wanted to do was check out. Not even ONE time did anyone apologize for the wait. Made absolutely No sense to me. It was totally worse than any Black Friday shopping experience. Ever. This shop is WAAAAY too far away from the other shops in our area.
I already have a Wednesday morning trip planned with my neighbor to hit a few of the shops close to home. I sure hope it's not as crazy as Sunday afternoon was! I will say, from what I saw between the crowds the quilt shop was really lovely, and their rendition of the finished Shop Hop quilt was really nice.
Just wanted to see if anyone else experienced any chaos during their LQS visits this weekend.