Needle Emporium's Tent Sale

We had counted down the sleeps for weeks, and finally the 8th July, 2008 arrived! Woo hoo!! Road trip, road trip! The London knitters were embarking on their annual pilgrimage to the Needle Emporium in Ancaster, Ontario.

Long had I heard glorious tales about the super amazing deals to be found at the NE tent sale. I was sooooo excited - could I snag a "you beaut" yarn deal too? Kata and Wil picked me up around 3:30pm and our road trip began... Nadine and Kat were already en-route - about 40mins ahead of us.

It was just after 5pm when we arrived at our venue (incidetally the tent sale was held in a church hall this year). Nowhere to park, and inside frenzied yarn shoppers. All I could see as I entered the hall were full bags of yarn hanging off every delighted shoppers arm.

We were greeted by friendly staff offering us three yarn bag sizes: $40 small bag, $75 medium bag or $150 large bag. Kat and I looked at each other, laughed and grabbed a $150 bag! The deal was that you could stuff your bag with whatever yarn you wanted to. Yowza! There were a few exceptions: collinette yarn was $10 and patterns and needles were priced too.

Off I set not knowing what to shove into my big bag. First stop - sock yarn. I only grabbed two lots of sock yarn cos I have so darn much already - one Lana Grossa and one ONline went into my bag. Next stop for me was the Jamieson aran weight yarn. I snagged three skeins in gorgeous teal and teal/heather blends. From there I moved on to four skeins of Lamb's Pride worsted for some felting. By the time I hit the Noro bin all that was left was a few yarn wrappers! Boo, bugger, hoo!

Next I spotted some Dalegarn Heilo yarn that would make great mittens for my niece Emily. And right beside that, some Zara yarn that would make great mittens for my niece Karlia.

I spotted a skein of collinette sock yarn and figured that for $10 it would make a great pair of socks for somebody. In my bag it went too. THEN I hit the Rowan table. Oh my God. There was just so much darn Rowan. I grabbed ten skeins of rowanspun 4ply.

I went round and round all the tables, and in the end I was satisfied with my lot. Best part was I squeezed it all into a $75 bag! Yippee, what a haul.

The trunk of Kat's car!

My haul

Our next stop was the Needle Emporium store itself. We spent quite a bit of time in that store, but I didn't buy anything more.

From there we had dinner at a pub in Ancaster, and bumped into other tent sale shoppers! What a small world.

All in all a fabulous road trip! Now the countdown begins for the Kitchener/Waterloo Knitters Fair!