A trip to London

I’m still over the moon at my new Lady Grey Coat. I wore it today for work and got some very nice compliments. I think my favourite was my manager who very politely apologized before saying the coat did not look “home made”. I thinks that’s a brilliant comment and nothing to apologize there. I also got some very nice comments from you all. Thank you so much!

Last Saturday I went up to London and had a few hours to kill before my SOS sewing dropin with The Trifty Stitcher (that lovely afternoon will be covered in a separate, future post). 

Despite the fact I lived in London for almost 6 years, I had no knowledge of fabric and haberdashery shops and the only vintage shops I knew were the one in places like Brick Lane. Because I only started sewing in June this year (already out of London) I never looked for it. I always had a keen interest in fashion and vintage but lived that via photography and shopping ready made clothing and magazines. I asked around in Twitter for recommendations and CL shared with me (thank you) two little haberdashery and fabric shops in Broadway Market, Hackney, so I set along to find these little gems. I do apologise for the lack of photos. I did take my camera but Broadway Market is quite busy and, to be very honest, I couldn't be bothered to take my camera out. 

Fabrications is a cute small haberdashery/thrift/vintage shop with so many little things to explore it’s easy to spend an hour rummaging through the bundle bags. There are boxes with little bags full of things like vintage buttons, fasteners, trims. Even vintage fabrics and Liberty swatches. Prices start at £1 per bag. Quite good, I think. They do very nice cushions too! I was a good girl and contained myself having only bought a £5 bag of beautiful burgundy trim. If you’re out and about in east London I recommend you visit this little gem.

Our Patterned Hand (couldn't find a official link to the store) is set in the same busy market road and sells some haberdashery, sewing patterns and fabrics. Upon entering I was “greeted” with the most amazing Harris Tweeds and lusted after them for quite some time. The other fabric choices are not to be ignored either. The layout of the store is fantastic and the selection doesn’t feel overwhelming. Needless to say, if you go to Fabrication you should pop to Our Patterned Hand too.

As I still had some time to kill, I decided to pop over to Dalston Mill fabrics, having read on their website that they have a vaster choice of fabrics in shop than online. And OH MY GOD, they are right! I simply cannot describe such shop. There’s piles and piles and piles of stacked fabrics in different rooms you keep discovering once inside the shop. In fact , there are so many it can be quite overwhelming if you’re just browsing and not sure what you want. The shop is also small and on a busy Saturday lunch time it was impossible to browse in peace or get anyone to help. Overwhelming but also paradise, because the choices are so vast.

I go to London about once a month at least so if you have any fabric/ haberdashery/ thrift/ vintage shop recommendations do let me know. I think I’m going to love rediscovering London from a seamstress eyes!