Fabric Shopping

Being the owner of a craft studio I get asked this question almost every day 'Where is the best place to buy fabric' Well I thought the best thing to do would be write a post signposting you to some of my favourite shops and online suppliers.

LOCAL PHYSICAL SHOPS:

The Log Cabin - Broadview Farm, 104 Billericay Road, Botney Hill, Billericay, Essex, CM12 9SL

This shop is a patchworkers heaven.  Located only 5 minutes drive from BTHQ and just between Herongate and Billericay along the country lanes, this shop is a real hidden treasure.  Stocked to the rafters with beautiful patchwork cottons and yarn.  Great for patchwork or crafts, but as most fabrics are only 44" wide there is little for the dressmaker here.

Geoffs Remnant shop - 31 Kings Road, Brentwood, Essex, CM14 4DJ.

A lovely local independent shop with traditional service with a smile.  Geoff can help you with most things, he has a great selection of haberdashery, trim, buttons, ribbons and zips etc.  Plenty of patchwork fabrics and lots of dressmaking lengths.  Not always the funkiest of prints but he is slowly building up his stocks and adding more and more modern prints each month

Ashley Brook Fabrics - 43 Market Place, Romford RM1 3DA

A good selection of upholstery fabrics and poly cottons.  Good for netting and crushed velvet etc.

Whist in Romford visit the haberdashery stall inside Romford Shopping Arcade next door to Ashley Brooks for buttons, trim, zips and cotton threads.

There is also:

Lili Fabrics - 8 Laurie Walk, Romford Shopping Centre, Romford, Essex, RM1 3RT

A small selection of dressmaking fabrics and poly cottons, nothing amazing but good for basics

ONLINE SUPPLIERS:

The Little Fabric Bazar - great fabric, weekly sales and fabulous service

Frumble - the place for something special, designer cottons for that wow factor frock

Fancy Moon - unusual designer fabrics with added wow factor

Guthrie Garnie - fabulous service, great for haberdashery, pattern and fabric

Jaycotts - the place for dressmaking patterns

Fabric Rehab - It's all in the name to be honest!
Sew Sew Fabrics - These guys are local and will deliver to BTHQ, they also offer 10% discount to all regular pupils of our classes

If you would like to do one of our classes, just give me a shout and I'd be happy to tell you how much fabric you need and the best place to buy it from.

Happy Shopping

Easy Peasy Darts - Tuesday Tutorials

It's Tuesday and that can only mean one thing.  Time for the Tuesday Pintorial Trail over at Crafts on Sea.  This week I am sharing my video tutorial for the easiest way I've found to mark darts when dressmaking. No more tailors tacks or tracing paper, this method is foolproof and so simple.

Once you've had a good look see, do pop over to crafts on sea and follow some of the other bloggers taking part in Tuesday Tutorials, there is a whole board of great ideas pinned each week.

Tuesday Tutorial - Steam blocking your crochet

It's Tuesday tutorial day today on Twitter and Pinterest #pintorials so I thought I would share my steam blocking tutorial with all you crochet fans.

This is  great way of ensuring lovely pointy corners and straight edges without leaving your work pinned out to dry overnight.

Just remember it only works with acrylic and cotton.  Don't try it with wool or your work will shrink!

I'm not making any promises but I am going to do my best to bring you a new tutorial every Tuesday if I can.

Doing the math - Justifying your class spend

Some people might think £25 - £35 is a lot to pay for a craft class, but I wanted to ask you a few quick questions which might help put the cost into perspective. My answers are in brackets to give you an idea of where I'm coming from:

How much do you pay for a birthday present for your Mum? (£25 +)

How much do you spend on a birthday present for your best friend? (£15)

How much do you spend on teacher gifts at the end of each year? (1 main £10 and 3 LSA's @ £5 = £25)

How much do you pay for a Christmas present for your Mum? (£35 +)

How much do you spend on a Christmas present for your best friend? (£15)

How much do you spend on teacher gifts at Christmas? (1 main £10 and 3 LSA's @ £5 = £25)

TOTAL = £140

If you did a tote bag making class (£25) a beginners crochet class (£40) and a Christmas gift class (£25) and maybe came to a couple of drop in taster sessions (£9 each) you would be set to make all the above gifts and plenty more for all your other friends and family for the rest of forever!  Not only could you give them the items you  make in class, you can use your new found skills to go on and make more gifts for others once you get home.

So a spend of £108 at Beautiful Things HQ not only gives you approximately 14 hours of enjoyable class time it indirectly saves you money.  

So when your other half says 'Are you off to another craft class?' remind them how much money your saving them on gifts this year.

The tools of my trade - Frixion pens

I've prepared a little video or you all to show you how marvellous these Frixion marking pens are to use when your sewing.  

How excellent was that?

Frixion pens are available in a full range of colours and are easy to purchase from our good friend Ebay!  You can even buy re-fills for them too.

*I was not paid or offered any free products to write this post, I am simply sharing a product I love with you my readers.

A Tuesday Tip

 I have decided to run some regular features on my blog and I wanted to start with my Tuesday tip.  Today's tip is a new one I have recently started and I admit to pinching the idea from 'A Thrifty Mrs' whose blog I follow.

Being a busy working Mum of 2 I seem to have a never ending stream of washing.  Now the warmer weather is here it is so nice to be able to get it all out on the line.

The sun comes into my garden early in the morning so I have taken Thrifty Mrs's idea of loading the washing machine at night before I go to bed.

When I switch on the kettle 1st thing in the morning I also switch on my machine.  By the time I am back from the school run the washing has finished, it can go out on the line and I can start my day of work knowing that the jobs been done and by lunchtime it will be dry.

Those of you with timers on your machines can be even more environmentally friendly and economical by running your machine overnight to save on power and subsequently money.

Try it for a week, I bet you wont go back to midday washing ever again!