As you know I am rather partial to the occasional retail therapy when it comes to fabric, even better when it is totally unexpected….

Skipton is turning into quite a good centre for fabric. The Fent Shop has been there for years selling furnishing fabrics both by the metre and also in fents, they also sell quilting and dressmaking fabric  and a bit of haberdashery, trimmings and the like. It’s quite an Aladins Cave, full of good quality fabrics at good Yorkshire prices!

A new shop opened over the summer opposite the church which sells John Lewis roll ends at very good prices too…

Last weekend I was dashing through Skipton market as I was late for my slot helping at the Skipton Embroiderers Guild exhibition. Now it’s not easy to dash through Skipton at the best of times, but Saturday must be the slowest! All of a sudden I came to an abrupt halt as I spotted fabric!!! Quilting fabric too…and beautiful quality…all at £2 for a fat quarter or £8 a metre!

I bought some gorgeous fat quarters and 2m of two different neutrals. It turns out the gentleman was from Quilt Cabin in Hebdon Bridge which sounds an amazing shop if ever you’re out that way. Anyway the good news for me is that he is going to have a regular stall on the Saturday market, though this is not necessarily good for my bank balance!

Yesterday I was in Skipton again for my regular Embroiderers Guild meeting and I spotted a new fabric shop on the main street. It’s called Cool Crafting, for those who know it it is the same people as the shop in Kirby Lonsdale!! I’ve never managed to get there but apparently it’s jam packed with crafty goodness and they have similar plans for their new shop in Skipton! It was their first day yesterday, it’s a lovely shop, they’ve got beautiful cotton, linen and wool fabrics, their heathery wool felts were gorgeous, just need to work out what I could make from them!! They have a good selection of independent patterns and lots of nice haberdashery too. They’ve a teaching corner with lots of plans there too. I think it’s going to become one of my regular haunts!

On 5th November it’s Sew Up North, a sewers meeting in Leeds organised by Becca from Red W Sews and Sally from Sew Sweet by Sally

They’ve been very busy making a great program for us, even as someone who shops regularly for fabric in Leeds, there’s a couple of places that are new to me, there’s much more detail on her blog here but the basic outline of the day is as follows;

Meet at Costa Coffee, visit Kirkgate Market, Samuel Taylors, Fred Aldous, John Lewis’s and Fabrication. If you fancy coming along, drop her a line, it sounds a great day.

Looks like my fabric stash is going to be going up rather than down!!