Fabric Shopping

I've been fabric shopping, thought I'd share here what I bought, hopefully fun for you but also helpful for me later when I sew it up.

Rainbow Fabrics ran a pop up shop in a hotel near the railway station in Nottingham. So I went along and bought 2 metres of pinky burgundy stretch denim and 3 metres of viscose print fabric.

I am planning to make the pink denim into a denim jacket.

The printed viscose will become trousers/culottes and a shirt which can be worn together or as separates.

They packed it up in a nice reusable tote bag.

I had a really fun time.

I then walked from the train station area, along the canal through the new pedestrian area (where Broadmarsh shopping centre previously was located) up into the main shopping area to pick up toiletries and home items and also visit the two fabric shops in the Lower Parliament Street area.

These are Creative Craft Corner in Queen Street (I often go there but didn't buy anything this time).

And the new Boyes at 20 Lower Parliament Street.

In Boyes I bought 2 metres of table covering fabric in sage green in a print called 'Honesty Leaf' for the kitchen. I've already cut it to fit the table, but have a bit left over which will become a bag.

I also purchased 2 metres of sage green knit fabric - 70% viscose 30% acrylic for a top for me.

Earlier in the week my latest Pound Fabrics order had arrived, so I'll record that here too, and no more fabric shopping for a while now :-)

Far Left 3 metres of Plain Navy stretch cotton for hiking trousers

Second left 3 metres of Elephant Family Polycotton in green for a shirt for me.

Second from right 2 metres of black viscose poplin for summer trousers

And finally far right 2 metres of navy viscose poplin for summer trousers

(I've previously made summer trousers from the mid blue and olive viscose poplin so wanted to have some more plains to go with various summer tops.)

And the elephants, well that's just because I love elephants!

I also got some thread a new sewing gauge.

Rich Resources

I bought some fabric (from Pound Fabrics)

Left to right

Poly-viscose jersey in ivory and black 3m of each

Striped rib knit fabric in green and pink 2m of each

Polyester elastane turquoise print 2m

Plain grey bengaline 3m

Nylon viscose mix fabric in Light stone and black 2m of each

Polar fleece in wine 2m

And was gifted a bag of zips 

I also donated a bag of patterns, trims and fabric which I won't ever use to a local charity shop, gave some curtaining to the person who gave me the zips and made some items for a friend. So the sewing items out exceeded the items in (by volume at least).

Exeter Fabric centre

We've been away for a few days and on Friday afternoon I got a chance to go to the Exeter Fabric Centre where I picked up these :-

 Click picture to view larger.
Top left - cotton Batik print DH chose for me to sew him a loose tunic top.
Bottom left to right
Chocolate brown linen (2m), jersey knit with white background and lace print (2m), plain chocolate brown jersey (2.5m), turquoise knit with flaw (3m), and light and dark taupe threads to go in the overlocker/serger with impossible to match fabrics.

The chocolate brown linen will probably be trousers with leftovers used to trim a slightly too short brown linen print skirt. The lace print and turquoise will be knit tops, the chocolate knit will be a dress and the cotton print a loose tunic for DH.

MIL also gave me some old Sew Today magazines (magazine for Vogue/Butterick/McCall's patterns) and though the pattern offers are expired there are good constructions tops and ideas for garment and fabric combos.
She also gave me some pieces of nice leather so once my techniques have improved a little bit, and I am used to sewing with leather on my machine I will branch out to some slightly larger leather pieces - I fancy a simple laptop bag, but we'll have to see how good I get.

Fabric purchases - photos

Last Saturday's fabric purchases - photos.

I finally got around to taking photos of the new fabrics I bought last Saturday.

1 - Chartreuse silk. Only 75cm of this, but I would love a little woven top of some sort from it.

2 - Ivory and black print knit. The art deco style print appears twice on the fabric, I am showing the part with a fault. With careful cutting this could be a great knit top. I could always use plain black bands if having trouble.

3 - Linings. Nice feel so I think rayon/viscose rather than poly. Dark brown, copper red and mid brown with stripes. These will make wonderful trouser linings.

4 - Navy striped fabric. A dark navy, heavy and beautifully soft, I have enough for a work dress or several pairs of pants!

5 - Striped trouser fabrics. The top two are dark olive, and brown, The bottom ones both black with brown stripes. Each of these is enough for a pair of trousers.

Fabric purchases

Today I went to the nearest fabric store which is about 15 miles away and had a good rummage.
Underneath one of the sections of furnishing fabrics I found a whole load of suiting and linings. All really nice quality, some seemed to be factory samples, others perhaps from a closed tailors shop. None of them were on bolts and they were many of them only 1.5 - 2m pieces.
The shop owner decided to charge me £1 per metre for these so in the end I came away with 23 metres of fabric. I suppose I ought to know better really as I have quite a good stash and am participating in the PR Stash contest at the moment, although the only garment I have made is the coral pink cosy on the previous post.

Today's purchases
75cm of chartreuse (yellow/green) slubbed silk (50p)
4m of mid brown striped lining (£4.00)
2m of dark brown lining (diamond weave pattern) (£2.00)
2.5m of  coppery brown lining (£2.50)
2m of dark brown pinstripe suiting (£2.00)
1.5m of black stripe suiting (£1.50)
2.5m of black stripe suiting (£2.50)
5m of dark navy suiting with darker and lighter stripes - v drapey, could be made into a work wrap dress or similar (£5.00)
3m of olive finely striped suiting (£3.00)
and 1.5m of ivory knit with black print (slightly art nouveau) (£1.50)
this has a fault which I will have to be careful how I cut out and layout to miss the fault and work the print with the garment.

P.S. Absolutely agree with Heather, in some cases this is a boring looking haul - nice linings, classic suitings, one print knit, but its all stuff that can be sewn up and worn in my everyday life. I love striped trousers.
I would like a little top/jacket out of the chartreuse silk, but not sure if there is enough of it.

P.P.S. Jenny the shop is very hit and miss. This was a hit obviously, but sometimes its all just polyester nonsense. Lots of things are not priced, and it depends which person serves you as to the prices. I saw the owner, and he obviously wanted me to buy this stuff he thought would be hard to shift. They buy up rollends from manufacturers, and stuff from closed businesses and sell it cheaply, but its really variable. Normally the only have poly lining at £2.50 p metre and poly satin for bridesmaids dresses and fleece. Plus lots of home dec. I bought really nice knits there last year but never seen them again - so another one off.
It is T.P. Textiles in Warrington, Cheshire.