Remnant bin

I came down with a cold at the end of last week, and didn't feel up to sewing. Then I've been traveling on business for all of this week. So it's been a while since I've been at my machine, and I miss it :( But I'm headed home tonight and have some projects lined up to work on. In the meantime, I thought I'd do a post about some great deals I found on fabric!

I do most of my fabric shopping at Joann's, and I'm slightly obsessed with saving as much money as I possibly can there. Which is a good obsession to have, given how often I'm there and how I always seem to discover something I "neeeeeeeeeeeeed" while I'm there.

One of my favorite ways to save money at Joann's is to dig through the remnant bin. "Remnants" are small pieces of fabric, anywhere from a few inches to up to a yard or so. I'm not even entirely sure where they come from. I think sometimes they are customer-returned fabric. Other times, they're the small amount left over on the bolt after a customer requests a cut.

Especially when sewing for kids, the relatively small yardages work perfectly. To give you an idea, Hubby's pajama pants required 2.5 yards of fabric -- way more than you'd ever find in the remnant bin as continuous yardage. But I can get a pair of pajama pants for both Littles and Noob out of less than one yard of fabric. I can easily find that in the remnant bin!

Anyway, the cool thing about the remnant bin is that everything in there is 50% off. Better still, it's 50% off the current price for that type of fabric. So for example, anti-pill fleece in solid colors is usually $8.99/yard. It regularly goes on sale for 50% off, or $4.49/yard. During these sales, remnants are another 50% off, or $2.25/yard -- a savings of 75%.

For some reason, one of my nearby Joann's did 75% off remnants for all of December, rather than the usual 50%. At the same time, all types of fleece (which, as you can tell from my tag cloud, is my most-used fabric) were on sale for 50%. So that meant that solid colored anti-pill fleece was just a little over $1/yard -- a savings of nearly 90%!

I took that opportunity to stock up like crazy! Here's what I took away from two trips:

22 yards of fabric. Regular price: $211. What I paid: $31 :)

I love having a big stash of fabric, so that when inspiration strikes, I don't have to find time to get to the fabric store. I can just start sewing right away! I've already used the blue Cowboys fleece on the second row for the sleeves of Noob's soft shirt and the bright pink fleece just below it for the bottom of Littles' nap mat.

I thought that the 75% off deal was some sort of special sale, but it's been going on for so long now that I wonder if it's permanent. I hope so! It makes awesome deals even better!