Abakhans fill a bag sale thoughts and my top tips for sale shopping!

I love a sale! Nothing is better in this world than something you want at half the price. Which is why I was so excited when I heard that the Abakhans fill a bag sale was coming to My local Hanley store. 

And I was even more excited when I realised I had quite the little pot of Christmas and Birthday money accumulated from my Mum and Dad.

Now I am planning on doing a video showing all of the fabrics I ended up with but I thought it might be nice to do a post saying what sort of happens and my top tips for going first. 

Okay so for starters! 

1. Get their earlyish. Now the staff do put things new things out throughout the day so everyone gets a fair shout BUT we did have to queue for about half an hour to actually get in. My mum picked me up at 9.00am so we should have been well early but we had a small not taking the exit we should have done issue on the way their. From what we could see they were operating a bit of a one in one out sort of thing which meant that the sale area wasn't getting over crowded. 

2. Be prepared to stand! This kind of links to the queueing thing but can you believe I nearly wore heeled boots? My feet would have died! 

3. Take a friend/family member. I went with my Mum because 1. she was paying and 2. its just nice to have some one with you isn't it. I especially liked that I had someone to chat to whilst waiting and that she was more than happy to look after the bags whilst I was digging for fabric. She did do some digging herself but I think the boxes being quite low down was making her back hurt, so in the end she was in charge of looking after the bags and trying to fit as much in as possible. 

Oh and the bags were £10 and you just put as much fabric in it as you could! 

4. Be open minded. You can't really go with a set plan of what exactly you want from a sale like with because all the fabric was in four huge cardboard boxes and you had to dig around. So you really have to look at things and immediately think do I like this? Does it fit in my wardrobe? What will I make with it? Their was a lot of lightweight floaty fabrics and a lot of heavyweight coat and sit fabrics but I didn't find many cottons. 

At the end of the day its a sale so you get what you get!  

5. Be polite. I always thought this was fairly standard when sale shopping but I went to the "NEXT" sale once and it was a bloodbath. But I'm happy to report that the abakhans sale was lovely, there was no pushing or shoving and on several occasions ladies actually helped me pull the fabric I wanted from the bottom of the box.

6. Check fabrics before you buy. Its a sale so naturally not every single piece of fabric is perfect. I saw a few pieces with holes in and a few with weave flaws so its worth taking a quick look to make sure there is nothing glaring in the fabric you've chosen. A few of the ones I picked had lil holes in but I'll be able to work around them no issue. 

7. Only buy what you'll use. At a sale its very tempting to get caught up in the moment and JUST BUY ALL THE FABRIC!!! but its better to be sensible! Yes get yourself a few wild cards [this girl picked up some swimwear fabric!!!] but also make sure you stick to the colours and fabrics that you actually like and will use! Remember its only a bargain if you'll use it! 

8. Park your car close. I ended up with four bags full of fabric and between me and mum and her wheelie shopping trolley [which thank god she brought!!!] the wheelie shopping trolley really helped but I definitely wish we had thought to park closer!!! 

So yeah that's my top tips for shopping Abakhans fill a bag sale! I really hope they come back to Hanley for another! 

Much Love

Frankie

xxx