There would have to be a really good reason for me to get out of bed at 6 in the morning. I could probably break it down to just two reasons – to go traveling or to go fabric shopping. Last Friday I was lucky enough to do a bit of both. Two of my sewing friends and I took a bus down to Glasgow to do some fabric shopping!
We had bought tickets for the Stitching and Sewing show in the SEC, and after a few hours busing and walking we finally arrived. I got more and more excited with each step closer. At first the big hall looks overwhelming but it turns out you just have to start walking and see where it takes you! After a few minutes we stumbled upon the online fabric shop Dots N Stripes. So many different knitted fabrics with quirky prints, I couldn’t just walk past this. I left with 1.5 meters of this super cozy organic jersey and ribbon with little dachshunds on it, so cute!
Super soft jersey I picked up from Dots N Stripes and my dachshund/sausage dog ribbon.
Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) it wasn’t like there were just rows and rows of fabric shops. There were lots of other things mixed in between the sewing and knitting stalls. We saw quite a few artists who displayed their creations, some food stalls and some random ones like Costco and various wildlife charities.
Walking around this enormous hall for a few hours made us very hungry. We found a restaurant within the SEC that looked nice and as it turned out, they serve really good food too. We sat down to recover from all the walking, enjoying a glass of wine and I had the most delicious burger!
After we finished our sewing chat and made a plan of attack we were good to go back inside for another look. It was great to visit with two friends who have similar taste as me. We found our favourite stall after lunch and we were all happy to stroke just about every single fabric that they had in stock. The shop is called CoolCrafting and you can find them online too. All three of us bought fabric from them. The stall looked so lovely and with so many different fabrics, trims and patterns, it was hard to leave so much behind.
Browsing the CoolCrafting stall.
Our tickets also gave us access to The Scottish Quilting Show and the Hobby Crafts Show, so before we left we also had a look in there but we were a lot quicker walking through. Jewellery making, paper crafting and quilting is just not really our thing. It was fun to have a look around though. We had seen everything by around 4pm and that gave us some extra time for… some more fabric shopping! Call us crazy but we just felt like we could get more out of this trip, it’s not we’re in Glasgow every week. We left the SEC to go to Mandors, one of our favourite fabric shops. I actually think they have more fabrics than all of the other fabrics at the show put together. Which meant that we spent another hour stroking fabrics, and spending more money. This time I bought jersey for my Geodesic Sweater which is next on my to sew list.
This is what I look like, posing in front of a fabric shop, holding a bag full with new fabrics 😀
We left Mandors happy, tired and hungry. Before starting our journey home we grabbed a nice meal in The Raven and then it was time for us to catch our bus back to Aberdeen. I was totally knackered and I slept through most of the trip, dreaming about our nice day and my new fabrics and trims!
Pink Bunny fabric (Riley Blake Designs), green velvet RicRac and Cacti fabric (Michael Miller) from CoolCrafting. Jersey in 3 colours from Mandors.
Till next time! Love, Barbara