Operation BFF: Black Friday Deals!

So earlier I posted about our Black Friday traditions, and I'm proud to announce that Operation Black Friday Fabric was once again a success.

Our caravan.  Yup, all shopping carts in this shot are ours.

This year we added two people to our team, making five able-bodied people to maneuver carts (or baby-sit them), coordinate fabric, and apparently entertain the JoAnn staff.

We got in line a little after five, chatting with other crafters about the Cricut and sipping hot chocolate.  The line seemed longer, which my seasoned Black Friday Shopping sister (who had been shopping since 10 pm the night before) attributed to the earlier openings of other stores.  With so many people and pretty much no major deals in scrapbooking, baking, or painting, we were clearly doomed.

Once the doors opened at six, we snagged carts and went about grabbing fabric.  Within minutes we had a Christmas tree, several bolts of fabric, and scored cutting number 73.  As we waited for our number to be called, we continued browsing fabric and making alterations to our selections.  Then the cutting process began....for all five of our carts full of flannel and fleece. (By the time they were done cutting our order, they were on cutting number 91!)

303 yards of flannel and fleece, 30 yards of batting, 10 patterns, a few thousand yards of thread, and numerous buttons later, we carefully navigated through the store before we decided that attempting to shop for anything else at the time was futile.  So we decided to check out what we had to avoid creating an avalanche in the middle of JoAnn's.

Our legendary special ops team.  And order.  Mission accomplished.

When we reached the register we found out that we had become the talk of JoAnn's as the one cashier excitedly claimed the opportunity to ring up our order.  Our 333 yards of fabric/batting, patterns, thread, and other notions that jumped into our cart, er, carts ended up saving us more than $2,200 (costing us under 30% of the retail value) with the sales and the 25% off coupon (not applicable on the flannel because it was a Friday doorbuster, but applied to the fleece).

This was probably the largest amount of fabric we've ever gotten on Black Friday, and amazingly enough, it was the fastest we've ever gotten out of there too.  In two hours we went from the pathetic people standing outside to the proud owners of flannel, fleece, batting, and a Christmas tree.

Operation BFF is a success.

And if you're jealous of our deals, the fleece is still $2.99/yard through Sunday, and if you got the mailer or massive stack of ads in the Thanksgiving paper, there is a coupon for 25% off your total purchase for Saturday morning, making the fleece $2.25/yard.  How can you pass that up?
 

What was your big Black Friday deal?