Yesterday I went on a F.A.R.T (Fabric Aquisition Roadtrip) with Elspeth.
For the past 2 years we have been reading all about the wonders of the Goldhawk Road in West London and we thought it was time to check it out.
I chose a Saturday as I decided to drive, meaning we could buy as much as we liked without fear of heavy bags on the train. There is no congestion charge on a Saturday so for two of us to travel it was also more cost effective.
It took just over an hour to get there from Brentwood. Sat Nav kindly took me all the way round on the M25 and cut me into London just near Heathrow. I would imagine on a weekday the journey would be horrific if you fancy trying it though. We parked in the local shopping centre just behind Morrisons for £9 for the day. During the week it is a lot more expensive so another reason to head in at the weekend.
We started on the right hand side of the road looking up towards Goldhawk Road train station (where the bridge is in the distance). The 1st shop is a really lovely shop with floor to ceiling fabrics. It has loads of luxury silks and linens as well as plenty of printed cottons. Prices in here are fairly standard for the basics and then go up a bit for the more luxurious fabrics.
A bit further along is Fabrix a great shop for your linings, ponte, jersey, felt, lining cottons and all the basics. They also own the next door shop which has your slightly more luxurious basics. We visited this shop right at the end of the day to buy all our linings and bits for the patterns we had decided to make.
Another of my favourites also on the right is Classic Textiles. This place is a bit of an Aladdins cave with 3 storeys of fabric, thin little corridors and it’s all a bit of a squish but you can get all sorts of wonderful fabrics in here and the staff are really helpful. I bought my crepe jersey & luminous sweatshirt fabric in here (see my video for my full haul).
A1 fabrics is the last shop on the right and is great for cottons, some lovely plain boiled wools and beautiful shimmery fabrics for dancewear and costumes. I bought my rose print trouser cotton in here.
Next to the railway bridge is the market. We had a lovely street food lunch of falafel and chicken wraps here and wandered in to find the haberdashery stalls to stock up on zips and thread.
After lunch we crossed over and came back down the other side of the road. There is another 7 or 8 shops on this side and I’m not sure whether I had fabric overload, lunchtime sleepy-ness or if they just were not as good but I didn’t find anywhere near as much of a nice haul on this side. There is a lot more Asian fabrics, beautiful lace and stunning bead work with lots of African wax cottons etc on this side but there are a few beauties hidden away. It was on this side I picked up my lovely coat wool and Elspeth bought some fabulous printed linen.
All in all we spent 5 hours fabric shopping in approx 15 shops! We had aching hands from our bags and between us spent just under £200 but I think we will have 11 garments to show for it when we have finished!
I can highly recommend a trip but if your making a special trip do take your patterns with you so you have an idea what you are buying for. If you don’t I could easily see it being a bit of a mind blow and you will either end up buying nothing or buying everything!
On the way home SatNav took us a different way and we realised it is a stones throw from Westfield. Next time I may consider parking here and leaving the kids at Kidzania. I can combine being a fab mummy with a fabric shop which is always good!
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