I must be the only person who’d go fabric shopping on Goldhawk Road and come back feeling a failure. And I blame you lot! Before I started reading all your sewing blogs and forum posts, I was happily oblivious to dirt cheap fabrics. Now I’ve gone the other extreme and am shocked at the prices these shopkeepers want. £3.50 for a meter? Are you kidding!
There’s also the problem of these shops being owned mostly by folks from the Indian sub-continents where haggling might be part of the shopping experience. I can’t haggle. In one of my previous lives I must have been a German or a Japanese – stickler for rules and order. So I managed a meager £1 off 5 meters of fabric. Not enough for an afternoon cuppa.
So backtracking a little bit…The whole reason I went shopping again was to find tricot lining for the Vogue 1159. Of course no one at Goldhawk Road had any idea what tricot is. To be honest, nor do I. So I came home with 5 meters of this drapy synthetic turquoise knit. And now I’m thinking the color’s too nice to hide inside. Besides, it’s not as light-weight as I’d like for lining. So massive Fail!
Back to online shopping it is then.
Speaking of which, after much kerfuffle, my package from Minerva Crafts & Fabrics finally arrived. On the positive sides, the prints actually don’t look too bad.
The snake-skin print is actually see-thru. I mean really scandalously see-thru! So I think I’ll be doubling up or lining it so the print will be more visible and not wasted.
Now the solids, they were a bit of a disappointment. Both were darker than the pictures on the website. The green one was like the evil twin. “Duck Shit” color is how my other half describes it. Thanks honey. And I got 5 meters of it too. It’s only saving grace is it feels rather cushy and velvety. Unlike most of the others, which feel like 70’s polyester.
Of course what I must remember is I got these fabrics to practice on. So it doesn’t matter if they’re not fabulous. And with that I leave you to go shopping again. Fingers crossed that elusive tricot lining wasn’t just a legend.
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