Nantwich Sale - or how to shop a show (part 2)

I thought, as I am becoming somewhat of an expert shopper you might like my 10 commandments for sucessfully navigating the perils of the traders section of a quilt show:

1. Go with a plan. Examine your stash before leaving home and determine what fabrics you need. Write that down and plan to buy only those.

2. Visit the cash point on the way and take your exact budget in cash.

3. Be aware that when you get there you will be tempted to break your plan. So have a 'comfort zone'. I.e. if you know you only need brights have that as your plan but know in the back of your mind that if you are tempted to go on a frenzy its Ok to buy a few african fabrics too. That way you limit your shopping frenzy.

3. Take a little extra out of the cash machine for this contingency and fold it up at the back of your purse so that you can enjoy the feeling of a blow out without actually getting out of control.

4. Be flexible. Be open to ammending your plan as circumstances demand.

5. Also take your visa card.

6. Think like a city finance expert. When saving for a pension the earliest contributions count the most because of the effect of compound interest. Cheap fabric bought now and invested in a stash will be cheaper in two/ ten/ twenty years time when you come to actually sew it because of the effect of compound inflation.

7. Take a Mastercard as well.

8. Think like a statesman. Bobby Kennedy is well known for this quote which as you will see with a bit of adaptation applies well to quilting:

"There are those [men/ non quilters] who look at things [fabrics] the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things [quilts] that never were, and ask why not?

9. Take a friend/ neighbour/ abducted stranger who also has cash and cards in his /her wallet.

10. Think like the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The more you buy the more likely it is that the quilting shop will stay open and the less likely it is that the shopowners will be unemployed. That means less welfare benefits have to be paid out which reduces the tax burden on society as a whole and on you in particular which means that the fabrics you bought are effectively free as the cash you handed over is equal to the tax you now do not have to pay as a result of having bought the said fabric.