One of the loveliest things about blogging my sewing and knitting endeavours has been meeting new, like-minded friends. Last year I caught up with Hélène, who came from Montreal to New York to have breakfast with me – how cool is that?
On my recent trip to London I managed to meet Sally from Charity Shop Chic and Capital Chic Patterns, and Kate from fabrickated.
Sally took me shopping in Goldhawk Road, after a longish lunch where we got to know each other a bit better. I took a selfie of us, which is rather shocking of me, but quite lovely of Sally, so I am putting it up here in the spirit of blogging veritas, as it were.
Underneath my coat and scarf, I’m actually wearing one of Sally’s patterns – her White Russian sweatshirt, which I really like as it’s quite close fitting and therefore fairly flattering. I added zipped pockets to this one and have worn it to death already.
Anyway, off to Goldhawk Road we went and I felt as though I was in Arab Street in Singapore. This street could take many hours to do thoroughly, but we made a fairly quick visit. Sally took me to her favourite shops and I managed to score a small amount of fabric. I am really trying to be well behaved, but it’s difficult when one is faced with scenes such as this
and this was just a small sample. Now I’m having a look at these fabrics, the one on the left hand side looks really appealing and I want it! I did manage to catch Sally amongst the bolts and she’s carrying the fruit of her labours!
I wasn’t very alert to the photography so belatedly captured some views of the shops whilst we were on the run. A to Z Fabrics is one of Sally’s favourites and I think I bought something there.
Shops are on both sides of the road
and are quite imaginatively named!
Basically you could probably find everything you want here, but I suspect it requires serious digging and I’m not that good at digging – I like my fabric to leap out at me!
That evening Mark and I were invited to dinner with Kate and her lovely husband in their beautiful home which was a real privilege. It is so nice to see where people create and to look at their projects and basically ooh and aah, because Kate is a bit of a powerhouse, creating high quality garments in fairly short order.
Kate has only recently begun knitting and I suspect that she’s already more proficient than I am, but I wore my Hanne Falkenberg knit, which is by far the most complicated thing I’ve ever made, and my most favourite knit.
A few people have asked to see what I bought, so here is my rather paltry UK collection. The striped fabrics are all ribs for sweatshirt bands, etc. The charcoal is a small piece of tweed to make Mark a cap, and the floral is a remnant that I bought in Goldhawk Road. I also bought the pink knit in Goldhawk Road, and the grey at bottom centre is some fabulous waterproof fabric for me to make another raincoat in the same style as my red one. That red raincoat was brilliant by the way and is already packed for my next holiday!
