On Sunday, April 13, 2008, 46 members and friends of the club took a chartered bus trip to 3 quilt shops in Erie, PA.   Thanks to Kathy Russell for all her hard work. 

The bus arrived at 6:45 am and we loaded everything up and off we went. When we left it was snowing, cold (30 degrees!) and cloudy. It looked to be that the day was going to drab. But the ladies on the bus were all full of sunshine and ready to shop. As we all got on the bus, and found our seat, Kathy had an itinerary set up for us along with a small slip of paper asking what we thought the bus would spend at the three shops. There were 44 lovely women, all of us fabric addicts; do you have an idea of what the bus spent?
We made a fast pit stop on the way and arrived at International Fabrics ahead of schedule. Everyone was so excited to see what the store had for us! Sue from International Fabrics got on the bus to explain the store layout, where the 1 bathroom was located (44 women who had to use it right away) had coffee and goodies for us and off we went. The fabric was unique, coming from all areas of the globe. Some of the fabric came from Uruguay, Guatemala, Great Britain, Germany, France, etc. with a large room dedicated to oriental fabric. The goodies were plenty and the coffee very hot. The store was small, but we packed them in and everyone went to look at one thing after the other, while others were eating and using the restroom.
Once we were finished at International Fabric Collection we were on our merry way to Mill Creek Sew & Vac. Ladies had their lunch, talked about our finds and we were there already. Wow! That did not take very long at all. Again, we were greeted by the owner who stated they had two rest rooms and the layout of the store. She was very informative about the designs for jackets and where the patterns were. She told us that Eleanor Burns was coming in September and if we wanted to see her the reservations should be made. I will pass out information about that at the meeting. Then again the ladies got off the bus and headed for the shop. Wow! Look at this fabric. Everyone really got into buying, matching, looking for the perfect fabric. We had that charge machine really smoking. I don’t think they had that much business since the last bus trip was there. Judy, the owner, gave everyone at least 10% off, but if you spent over $50.00, then you received 25% off. Well who wouldn’t like that deal. Everyone at the store was most helpful and really worked hard to make our visit pleasurable as well as profitable for them. I would not hesitate to go there again.
Once everyone got on the bus we found we had a slight problem with the door – it would not close! The wind had whipped it of sync with the air compressor. So in order for us to go onto out next stop Gene (our driver) tried several different things, which did not work. Finally he came up with the idea to take two large engine belts tied together, put through the door handle and then through a rail so we could get to the next stop. In order to make sure that the door did not fly open Kathy sat on the floor holding onto the belt until we got to Calico Patch. Gene drove very slowly so the door would not fly open. When we arrived at the shop we all piled into the shop while he called the garage and figured out how to get the door fixed. Luckily for Kathy she did not have to sit on the floor all the way home! Again, we all had a good time looking, buying and smoking up that charge machine. Because of their anniversary sale everyone got to pick a mint with a percentage off. A few lucky ladies received either 50% or 25% off their purchases while the rest of us received 15%. Once we were done shopping we were on our way home.
We received 3 door prizes (one from each store) for the contest Kathy had them do. Guess the amount of money the whole group would spend on this trip. You had to guess the amount of money without going over to win. Barb Butcher, Carol Meek and Kathy Dewey were the big winners. There were other games, prizes and a lot of comradely going on. I believe that everyone had a great time, got really tired, but would do it over in a minute. A good time had by all.
Oh, by the way we spent about $5,925.00; very good day of fabric shopping for some.
Kathy