You better shop around!

Yesterday, my mother and I went shopping together. No boring, crowded malls or shopping centers for us – our shopping trips are almost always exclusively centered around quilting. I consider myself really lucky to have a mom who quilts – and no, she didn’t get me into quilting. In fact, it was quite the other way around. It was because I enjoyed quilting so much that she became involved in it. Fortunate for me, because now I have a shopping buddy who understands color, pattern and fabric.

Anyway, we always browse everything in a shop, from fabrics to books to thread to sewing machines, if they carry them. Yesterday was no different. My mom had come to my side of town to check out our new quilt shop QuiltWorks. I’ve already been in there several times, but each time they have added more fabric. I already had a quilt in mind to make and I had the instruction book in the car so I could refer to it if needed.

We were checking out the books when we found a new Turning Twenty book, which features sashed blocks. It was absolutely beautiful – the front cover looked like stained glass. I turned it over to check out the price and was appalled to find that it was $24.95. You see, these are very small books – no more than 25 to 30 pages each. For $24.95, I would expect something more … substantial. I looked at my mom, a look of doubt in my eyes. “It doesn’t seem worth that much money,” she said.

I thought about it for a minute and decided to go check the price of the book I had in the car. I had bought it a couple of years ago at The Painted Pony. Knowing me, I reasoned, I wouldn’t have spent that much money on a book that small. So I went out and looked and sure enough, I had paid $10.95 for that book. I went back and told my mother, and we decided that neither of us would be willing to pay $25 for the book. We left the store without buying anything, hungry and ready to check out the next store.

When we got back in the car, I made a decision to call The Painted Pony and just ask if they had the book, how much it cost. They had it and it was $14.95. A difference of $10 between the two stores! And trust me, it would be worth it to drive across town for the difference, even with today’s gas prices – I would go to The Painted Pony even if there wasn’t a book involved! We didn’t go there, but my mother will be stopping by there to pick up two copies of the book – one for each of us.

So my mother was right … it really does pay to shop around.

Later, I will post about what we DID buy and what I plan to do with it. Until then, happy quilting!