Grandmother’s sale haul 2022

2022 Grandmother’s Fabric Sale Shopping Haul

The 2020 Ujamaa Grandma’s Fabric & Yarn sale was cancelled due to Covid, and while there was a 2021 version, I didn’t hear about it, and didn’t go. (Apparently it was quite small.) However, this year my housemate did a bunch of clearing out of her fabric and we both went through a bunch of our craft supplies and dropped off a bunch of donations a few days before the sale, which ran April 29-May 1.

This year, they used an online ticketing system to give away free tickets – with a limit of 100 per hour long time slot. Having seen how bad the parking was there, even though for Friday, April 29th we had tickets for the first time slot (10:30 am) we ended up getting there a little more than an hour in advance – largely to find parking, but also to line up.  We ended up being 6th in line… however the vast majority of people we chatted with didn’t have tickets at all.

Line up behind me, waiting to get into the 2022 Grandmother’s Fabric & Yarn Sale on Friday

I’m not entirely sure how they handled it though – they seemed to be letting everyone in, tickets or not… I’m not sure if they were limiting it to 100 people either, because once inside on Friday it was… packed.  I think part of it was because they aisles between tables of fabric were quite narrow. Wide enough for sure for two people to walk past – but not necessarily wide enough for two people with big bags of fabric….

Finding tickets was definitely a challenge too.  Once I knew when tickets would be available, I ended up going directly to the ticketing site (at 12:05 am that morning!) and doing a search for the sale, rather than trying to go through the Grandmother’s website. Lots of folks online talked about not being able to find a link, not knowing they’d need tickets, and going to the ticketing site, and seeing “sold out”  – or simply that the event wasn’t there for them to “shop” with.

I didn’t want to catch identifying information, so while this photo doesn’t look exceptionally crowded – it was!

I think a LOT of this is due to the nature of their primary audience… older folks. Folks who might not buy a lot of online tickets, who might not know how the different ticketing websites work, and who likely don’t spend a ton of time on social media  – where there were a LOT of reminder posts about the ticketing aspect, etc.

Ok…  you didn’t come here for me to rant about tickets… on to my haul!

From Friday, April 29, 2022

When we dropped off our fabric and things, we saw that someone had donated a sewing light that my housemate had her eye on… and a rotary cutting mat – that we BOTH coveted.  That meant that as soon as we got into the shopping area, we made a bee-line for the quilting section, and both snagged a cutting mat – mine HUGE, and hers slightly smaller.

I also picked up a thick quilting ruler as well. I love these for use with the rotary cutter since unlike the thinner rulers, I don’t have to worry about slicing into them accidentally!

(All lengths approximate – click the photos to see them larger!)

2022 Grandmother’s Fabric Sale Shopping Haul

Wool

• 1.2 meters of teal-green jacket-weight wool
• 1.1 meters bright cherry red wool suiting
• 2.2 meters grey wool suiting
• 5.2 meters soft mauve jacket-weight wool

Silk

• 2.2 meters black shot with pink silk dupioni
• 3.2 meters copper shot with teal silk habotai
• 1.3 meters emerald shot with black silk dupioni
• 1.1 meters dark royal blue silk habotai
• 3 meters bright orange silk habotai (golden yellow shot with red)

Swimwear fabric

• 1 meter blue swimwear fabric with green, blue, and silver flower
• .50 meters plain purple swimwear fabric
• 1 meter (plus some cut offs) plain hot pink swimwear fabric
• 1.2 meters black swimwear fabric with red, green, yellow, and blue floral print

Fancies

• 3 meters gold jacquard
• 1 meter plus a lot of edges French embroidered lace with clear sequins
• 3 meters white tulle with 3-D flowers, silver thread & sequins

Other stuff…

• .75 meters unbleached cotton canvas
• An art quilt kit with pattern and fabric (about table runner size I think)

I couldn’t even get to the notions area, and didn’t look at patterns at all, and barely could get into the quilting fabric or yarn area either…

In total, I spent a little over $100 on the Friday.

Instagram haul post

From Sunday, May 1, 2022

I worked on Sunday, but also got tickets for Monday. On their Facebook, the Grandmothers announced that a number of their sections would be buy-one-get-one free, which meant that even though things were HUGELY picked over, there were some even better deals to get…

Again, all measurements are approximate.

2022 Grandmother’s Fabric Sale Shopping Haul

Wool

• 1.5 meters dark blue worsted wool suiting

Silk

• 3.2 meters navy blue silk noil
• 1.5 meters cream, gold, tan striped silk
• 20 meters gold embroidered silk home dec fabric  (see a bigger photo on Instagram)

Fancies

• 2 meters black and red geometric jacquard

Home decorating fabric

• 1 meter mauve “figured velvet” upholstery velvet
• 2.5 meters black upholstery velvet
• 1.8 meters blue embossed upholstery velvet

2022 Grandmother’s Fabric Sale Shopping Haul

Other

• 3.3 meters brown (low stretch) PVC/pleather
• 2 meters bright blue-purple swimwear fabric

Plus I also bought a package of transfer foil. I have the foil and glue from a number of years ago when I attended a workshop where it was featured, but… haven’t used it a lot yet. I really should!

This time around, I spent a whopping $27 – and yes.. you read that 15 meters bolt of embroidered silk correctly…

The grand total

I read on the Grandma’s Facebook that they raised a record $65,022 (before expenses) which is awesome!

To my fellow local sewers, crafters, knitters, (etc)

What did YOU get this year at the Grandmother’s sale?  Share links to your haul posts (Instagram, blog, etc) in the comments!

Check out what I snagged in previous years:

• 2011 sale
• 2012 sale
• 2013 sale
• 2014 sale
• 2015 sale
• 2016 sale
• 2016 sale (Red Deer)
• 2016 sale (Lethbridge)
• 2017 sale
• 2018 sale
• 2019 sale

This year the Edmonton sale was held on Saturday April 30th, but for future reference, the group’s website is here. The calendar where the Saskatoon, Red Deer, Lethbridge, and Medicine Hat sales would be doesn’t seem to be working right now.. but in the past they had sales too.

It looks like 2019 was the last time the group in Red Deer held the sale, the Medicine Hat one was in March 2022, The last Saskatoon one was in 2019 as well, and the last one in Lethbridge was also in 2019.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dawn (@sadinadawn)

I’ve loaded up some video of the fabrics as well, if you want to check it out!