It was finally our day to shop at the Vera Bradley Outlet Sale! We had tickets to the 11:00 am session, which was the second session of the day. We made good time and arrived at the Coliseum around 10am. Already, the sale was better than last year as we were able to park quite close to the building instead of all the way in the back.
Since we were earlier than I expected, we popped into the tent in the parking lot. This tent features full price items in newer styles and patterns. I was hoping to see the pattern Watercolor in person, but could not find anything in that pattern in the tent.
We then headed into the Coliseum where we were directed upstairs. We walked around what turned out to be about 3/4 of the arena before finding the end of the line. At that point we had about 24 minutes until our session was scheduled to start. There were price lists available when we first entered the waiting area, so we looked over those and made a plan of what we wanted to look for first.
The line did not actually start moving until after 11:00, which was frustrating and then we moved and stopped a few times before finally continuing all the way to doors of the sales floor.
And it was fabulous! The tables were all well stocked and I saw lots of patterns. The limited crowd made it much easier to move around and get to the tables. And checking out was a breeze! We headed to the checkout around 1:00 and were lead right to a register! 10 minutes later, we were out the doors with our purchases in hand!
A couple of differences from previous years that I wanted to note. 1) You are no longer allowed to sit on the floor to sort per the fire marshal. There certainly weren't the crowds of women everywhere on the floor as usual, but there were still groups sorting around the various discard bins. I did see women sitting and kneeling on the floor and none of the security personnel told them to stand up, so I guess as long as you don't camp out on the floor, you're OK. 2) There is no free gift at checkout. That was a disappointment. It would have been a much better use of the key chains they were charging $12 for up on the sales floor. They had hundreds, if not thousands of those and I didn't see many people going for them.
So what patterns did I see? Was I right? Well, sort of. I did see several of the patterns I predicted, but I was also surprised by how many older patterns I saw. Keep in mind, these are only the patterns that I noticed seeing many times. There were also patterns available in limited quantities that I may not have noticed.
I saw...
- Sittin' in a Tree
- Loves Me...
- Totally Turq
- Imperial Toile
- Java Blue (All of the rolling luggage was Java Blue and there was lots of it.)
- Paprika
- Hope Garden (My mom bought a purse in this pattern.)
- Bali Blue
- Bali Gold
- Simply Violet
- Night and Day
- Call Me Coral (Not a lot, but it was there)
- Make Me Blush (Again, not a lot, mostly accessories)
- Slate Blooms
- Hello Dahlia (Sadly, not in anything that I wanted! Boo!)
- Twirly Birds Pink
- Twirly Birds Navy
- Barcelona
- Cupcake Green
- Cupcake Pink
- Night Owl (Lots of Night Owl! I actually picked up several things in this one, but put them back in the end.)
- Puccini
- Botanica (a few things)
- Pink Elephants (a few)
In the end, I only bought a few things, but I'm happy with what I got.
I ended up with a Stephanie in Totally Turq, a Hipster (marked down to $29.99) in Totally Turq, & a Brush & Pencil in Twirly Birds Pink. As I said before, I had picked up some other things in Night Owl, but I put them back in favor of more colorful items. At one point I was also contemplating a Ribbon Board in Hello Dahlia, but I put it back. Dumb of me because it was the last one and of course, it was snatched up before I could get back to it.
Overall, I'm very happy with our experience at the sale. After last year's nightmare, I thought I'd never go to the sale again, but I decided to chance it with the ticketed days and I'm very happy that I did. I will gladly go again next year if they do ticketed days again.
If you went to the sale, what did you get?
