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Friday, May 31, 2013

Walthamstow market fabric shopping guide - as promised!

So yesterday I promised a guide to Walthamstow fabric market where I got the lovely jersey knit for my infinity dress. That's not all I bought...check out my haul!
Whenever I go to Walthamstow market I'm always surprised with what i come away with for such a good price. Clockwise from top I'll go around what I bought and what I'm going to make...partly to tell you what a steal some of it was, and partly as a permanent remninder of what I'm planning to make!

When you come out of the (underground) station, walk straight ahead until you reach the road where you turn left. That's where the market starts. The first time I went I was disappointed as there didn't seem to be much there, but wait for it - it gets better!

The first great place (in my humble opinion) is a fabric store (called Textile something?) behind a kitchenwares market stand selling saucepans and the like. There are some absolute bargains in there (check out my 66p/m, £1.10m and £1.65m fabrics below) and they also have real silk chiffon for about £6/m (and are very friendly)

Next is a stall outside tesco. That wasn't there when I last went as there were roadworks, but it does have some great stuff. A little further down there is a small fabric stall on the left hand side of the market selling mainly cottons, and the people also own a shop in the ajoining road (definitely worth a look).

The next part of the market you will find a few stalls selling trimmings, needles, zips, ribbon etc, and the stock of the shops lining the road is exhausting! You can pick up great stuff very cheap here, although I'm still dubious about the zips (they are v.v. cheap - I bought one and put it on a skirt and the zipper stuck) so that's probably the one thing I don't mind paying more for.

You'll reach Saaed's soon enough on your left. The shop has two fronts, the first with mainly upholstery and jersey fabric, the second with cottons and dressmaking. They're really professional in there and know a lot about the fabrics.

There are a few more shops after this at excellent value - the one next to Saaeds is where I got the Aztec jersey print below, and a few doors down the white and navy striped.

All in all I love going to Walthamstow - I always think I've spent an absolute bomb then remember that if I spent the same in John Lewis I would probably come away with about 3m of cotton!

If you have any questions on the fabrics, shops or anything, I'm not an expert on the market but let me know and I'll see if I can help. Right...onto what I got!...
Top flowery fabric: £1.10/m - 2m bought. This is a jersey fabric, and I'm planning to make a maxi skirt with elastic (possibly black?) waistband
Black fabric with bows: £1.65/m - 3m bought, I was planning to make the new sewaholic Tofino pajama bottom pattern with these, but I couldn't wait! So I used internet tutorials to make a pair of pajama bottoms, and kind of created my own waistband and I love them! I haven't taken them off much this week :-S and still have about 1.5m of the fabric left
Black jersey: £2/m - 2.5m bought. I mainly bought this for the top of my patterned infinity dress, and It was exactly what I needed. It will be great to have some black jersey around for odd projects here and there
Aztec patterned jersey: £2/m - 3m bought for £5. This was the end of the role hence why the shop was willing to sell it to me cheaply. I fell in love with the pattern on this and couldn't stop thinking about it for the bottom of an ifinity dress. Still have 1.5m left and deciding what to do with it. I'm wondering whether I could get away with something like this two piece dress but not sure my curves will allow that. I don't know if this dress would be any better - what do you think?
Pink t-shirt fabric: £1.10/m - 2m bought. I bought this with an easy t-shirt dress in mind, like this burda dress just to go over swimwear whilst on holiday
Greeny stretch fabric: £0.66 (!)/m - 2m bought. I bought this with another of the burda dresses in mind. What can I say - When I like something I stick with it!
Turquoise jersey fabric: £2/m - 5m bought. My most expensive purchase of the day! I made a short infinity dress from this (although the waistband is just a little too big
Flowery chiffon with black/white stripes: £1.65/m - 2m bought. Hoping to make a maxi skirt out of this but haven't quite decided how yet
Blue, white, red flower/stripe fabric: £1.65/m - 1m bought. To make more (short) pajama bottoms, although I think I might make them just below the knee rather than as shorts
Two white fabrics: About £1/m each - using them as linings for chiffon skirts and the jersey skirt (which I expect will be hot and sticky in the summer!)

Now for the stripy fabric...I wasn't planning on buying this, but went in the shop and it completely grabbed my eye. The stripes are narrow in the middle and widen out towards the top and bottom. I'd love to make a flared over the knee dress with this, where the narrow stripes are around the waist. The closest I've found is this beautiful dress but I wonder whether it needs a plain colour to really show off the back. What do you think?

Thursday, May 30, 2013

A hefty break

Well that was a long break since my first post - over three years in fact - and a lot has happened in those three years:

I've started sewing - more on this later but I love it
I've made so many more knitted projects, and really need to get back on that after a short hiatus
I bought a flat! Yep, a fully fledged, grown up, mortage ridden flat
I got a new car (its yummy)

So things have definitely changed. For the better? Yes I think so, after all why would we try to move backwards in life right? Whatever we do we do because we think it will make life better for us or those around us, even if it's just because it gives us enjoyment at the time.

So...onto sewing. My parents bought me a sewing machine last year for my birthday (I found a nearly new one on gumtree) and I've been making a number of different things, and have recently ventured into dressmaking, making some dresses, skirts etc. I was recently lucky enough to be able to splurge on an overlocker from some leftover Christmas money which has made everything SO much easier. Over the weekend I made two infinity dresses and a pair of pajama bottoms (which I haven't got out of yet - love em!) Here's the first one I made - it was difficult to get the printed jersey pattern to match up, but as luck would have it the width of the pattern repeat was exactly the size I needed for one skirt panel. The next one I made I used a circle rather than tube skirt, made the straps thinner and made it shorter:



Check out a post tomorrow on my fabric shopping guide to Walthamstow Market - I love it! And I have enough of this patterned jersey left to make something else - not sure what though. Any suggestions?

Love x