Abakhan Secret Sale – 18th July 2015 July 25, 2015

Me, Susan, Nele and Eleanor with our golden ticket!

I was lucky enough to receive 2 Golden VIP tickets to Abakhan’s Secret Sale last Saturday, the 18th July at their Mostyn branch and was able to take 3 of my friends from Liverpool Sewing Club. We had a great day, buying lots of bargains in the secret sale, shopping in the rest of the large Abakhan store, sitting in the sun eating, drinking and having a great day all round.

As I blogged about a while back I went to Abakhan’s first secret sale on the 28^th March. This was a ‘Warehouse Style’ Sale with discounts of up to 85% off normal retail prices and held in one of their stock warehouses. This caused a few issues with long queues due to the size of the warehouse and therefore the related number of customers that could be in at any one time for health and safety reason. I’m happy to say that Abakhan learnt from this and at the most recent sale used a much larger warehouse, with well organised tills inside and an orderly queuing space, with a marquee providing shelter, in case of rain! Therefore queuing time was much reduced at this second secret sale as 150 were allowed inside at once, as in opposed to 40 last time! Also there was much more fabric was available for us to browse through, which made me very happy!

Golden ticket secret Sale time

On arrival with our golden tickets we were signed in and given exclusive 15% off discount vouchers and then we were allowed early access to the sale, an hour before the general public, so there was lots of time to browse and of course rummage! The warehouse was very well laid out with the different options very clear and well organised and the walls were lined with rolls and rolls of fabrics. I also loved the fill a bag for £10 section and of course had to have a proper rummage, as you can see!

Gotta have a proper rummage!

The £10 fill a bag haul! All of this plus another 3m of polyester that’s already been used!

It was also a good opportunity to meet members of the sewing community that I chat to on line but only get to actually see occasionally, – Rachel from House of Pinheiro, Celia from Sew Fundamental, Michele from Swiss Army Wife and Paul Clarke who appeared on Great British Sewing Bee and of course – Will Abakhan!

Myself, Rachel & Paul

Myself with Michele & Ceilia

Myself & Will

There might be a slight chance I bought a wee bit too much fabric but the bargains available were amazing. Dress and house fabric rolls and bolts started at just 50p a meter and could only be bought in full rolls, so the price depended on the amount of fabric left on the roll! To be honest there were a lot more rolls and bolts of fabrics that I almost bought but I didn’t want to scare the bank manager too much! I love wearing jersey, so tending to sew a lot with it, therefore that was what I was mainly on the lookout for but some other fabrics just jumped out at me and had to be purchased! My secret sale purchases were as follows:

Some great knit fabrics

2 great rolls of fleece & a lightweight double sized faux fur

Lots of other fabrics – purple voile, household Clarke & Clarke polka dot, great loose weave, mid weight grey & lightweight abstract florals.

Not bad for just £65 in total!

A very kind member of staff helped us get the cage to the car!

All the staff were encountered in the warehouse, were very friendly and helpful. Myself and Nele bought that much fabric that we had to use a cage to take it all out to the car!

I was also very glad that I swapped my little Ka for my dad’s much larger Meriva for the weekend! Made packing the car a lot easier, although we still managed to fill the boot that much that extra purchases had to be put on the back seat!

By this point we were very grateful of our free breakfast bap in the onsite Abakhan Cafe, as it had been a very early start of 7am to ensure we got there in time to use our golden ticket early access opportunity and maximise our bargain hunting!

Breakfast time!

I’ve been to the large Abakhan Mostyn branch before but Susan (being originally from America) had never been before and this is much larger than the Birkenhead and Liverpool stores we’re all used to, so with our 15% discount vouchers we headed off into the main store for some more fabric based retail therapy. The store was busy but there were ample friendly and helpful staff available to help us and we had great fun exploring the rolls and remnants available, with all of us making more purchases and again more bargains were to be had – Susan even managed to get some Hello Kitty rip stop, of which I’m very jealous! The liberty lawns available were beautiful and I spent a while admiring them.

Abakhan Mostyn

Lots of Liberty lawn

Lots of fun was had exploring the rolls and remnants both upstairs and downstairs in the main building with both myself and Nele making more purchases. The prices in Abakhan are great to start off but then with our special 15% discount vouchers we got even better bargains and therefore erm, seem to have purchased even more fabric, oops!

Main store purchases

After all that shopping we needed another break and decided to have a light lunch in the Abakhan Café and as the sun was shining we took advantage of the outdoor seating to relax and then to enjoy our free golden ticket desserts – a delicious and well-presented summer fruits brulee with a handmade shortbread biscuit, a perfect summery desert to be enjoyed in the Welsh sunshine.

Desserts

We all had a great day out at the Abakhan secret sale and got loads of great bargains, am already figuring out and planning what projects they’ll be used for. If you would like to find out when the next Secret Sale is then complete this form on Abakhan’s website (you might also spot a familiar face in the photos of the day).

Did you also visit the Abakhan Secret Sale? If so, why not leave a comment below telling me what you thought and what you bought?