Goldhawk Road Fabric Shopping

It was my birthday last weekend and my amazing fiancée gave me a handful of cash and off we went to the Goldhawk Rd. I have to confess that, even though I live in London, I hadn't ventured over to West London to pay Goldhawk Rd a visit. My local fabric shop, Rolls & Rems, isn't even 5 minutes’ walk from my house and I've tended to stock up on fabric at The Knitting and Stitching Show. However it’s always good to explore new places so off we went.

I decided to go with the ‘if I like it then buy it’ attitude rather than window shopping then revisiting as I wouldn't have been able to remember which shop was which. I did think some of the shops would be bigger… maybe I've been spoilt by having a large fabric shop so close to where I live… I’d also made a conscious decision to think about winter fabrics rather than any white and thin cotton which I have a stash of ready for next summer.

With that in mind I bought the following selection:

First stop was Classic Textiles which was pretty full. The staff were really attentive, helping me move rolls of fabric to get a better look at what was hidden behind. They had a great selection of Liberty style prints which were precut in 3m lengths and bagged up so you could have a good rummage. I bought this blue peacock fabric which was £7 per metre. It’s so silky soft and smooth and will look gorgeous lined with royal blue cotton.

My fiancée then found this blue floral fabric with the yellow roses. I do have a thing for blue, it’s my favourite colour so naturally I got 3m of this too! It was also £7 per metre. I’m not sure if they have an offer for multiple purchases but he only charged me £40 for both lots. They’ll also cut smaller amounts if 3m is too much for you.

We had a look around a couple of other shops, one of which specialized in leather – I've never seen so many different colours of leather all piled up! Another which seemed to have a lot of silk which I’m not confident enough to work with…yet!  Over the road we popped into Fancy Fabrics where this black fabric immediately caught my eye. It seems kind of 1930’s in style to me, I could imagine a character in an episode of Poirot wearing a dress made from it. It’s 100% cotton and was £5 per metre.

There was a bit of a hard sell while we were in there, with the assistant pulling out every floral cotton fabric they had to show me… I’m a sucker and ended up also buying the end of the roll (2.15m - he was most insistent that I noticed the extra 15cm) of this red and blue cotton. Not idea how much it was per metre but he charged me £7 for it. I might make a blouse with it – who knows!

Next up was Toni Textiles where all the fabric is vertical on rolls against the wall and creating walkways through the shop. They had a huge selection of fabrics (especially printed cottons). Staff here weren’t as attentive and it took a while to get their attention (after we’d managed to extract the roll of fabric I was after). The assistant didn’t know how much it cost and just walked off! I finally got it cut (£4.50 per metre) and paid for. As we were leaving we noticed a sandwich toaster plugged in and resting on a pile of fabric – I don’t think Health & Safety are a top priority! But the fabric is cute and its 60” wide so win win. In fact most of the fabric I bought was either 55”/60” wide – it seemed the standard width in all the shops here…

Final stop was back over the road to A-One Fabrics where I’d seen some pretty black florals which I’d decided to come back to if the budget allowed. I took a shine to some black fabric with red flowers but when we opened the roll there were quite a few rips and there wasn’t enough left for me to have been able to make a dress. Instead I bought this black and purple floral which I absolutely love. It was £4.50 per metre and I can’t wait to sew it up!

My birthday weekend continued with a dash to Fortnum and Mason’s for afternoon tea which was a delicious treat. At £40 its good value too as you can ask for as many refills as you like – more sandwiches?  Done.  Extra scones?  Of course. Shall we box those up to take home along with your jams? Perfect. Also meant we got to have a 10pm patisserie treat later in the evening.  

As for sewing, I didn’t quite get my new dress finished to wear on my actual birthday but I did wear it to birthday drinks with friends last night. I bought this yellow cotton from the Eternal Maker stand at the Spring Knitting and Stitching show. At £14 per metre it was pricier than recent fabric purchases but it’s totally gorgeous to work with and feels really good quality. I made another Mortmain dress by Gather Kits. I really love this pattern, the waistband and the pleats in the skirt. I might try another with longer sleeves for winter.  Gather have also just released a dressing gown pattern / kit which is super cute and I might make one to wear when getting ready for our wedding in February.  

Mortmain dress worn with my Irregular Choice Flick Flack kitten heels.

Right, I’m off to prewash my fabric…