On Friday, Himself and I had to head off to our local Spotlight, which is local to our location but not one I have been to before (going, instead, to the ones that I have always gone to because they used to be local to my location). A few weeks ago, Himself found himself at Spotlight picking up something I urgently needed and also purchased half a metre of four different fabrics for me that he thought I would like - and he was correct, I did like them. I decided to use two of them but discovered half a metre of one particular fabric is just not enough and I also needed a coordinating colour to tie the two together.
I was completely taken aback by what I found. Previously, when going into Spotlight, I have headed for the papercraft section or the yarn, or possibly anything else there but the fabric so it has been a while since I've had a browse. What I can say for certain is that when I have looked through the fabric at Spotlight, I didn't find it all that impressive. This visit, maybe with a new appreciation of fabric and the willingness to look and consider things for sewing projects (which I have never had the confidence to do before), I was impressed. I found, in our very quick run through (as I was determined to simply buy the two fabrics I needed) at least 20 fabrics I thought were absolutely beautiful and how I would love to make something with them.
The day before, I was at a decidedly more 'up-market', more expensive fabric shop. I purchased four and a half metres of fabric for the grand total of $106. That roughly works out to $23 per metre (some were slightly more expensive and some were slightly cheaper per metre). Today, at Spotlight, I purchased two metres of fabric for $12, $6 / metre - and could easily have spent another $106 - but I would have had around at least 15 metres of fabric for that money.
I guess the point I am making (if I am making any such thing) is that I appreciate the quality might not be top-notch and there were also a lot of fabrics with colours and designs I found hideous but you can certainly get nice fabrics for a fraction of the cost of other places. I like supporting small businesses, I like the customer-service focused attention, I like being able to speak to someone really knowledgable about their products and how to do things and I will always try to support small businesses whenever I can...but $106 on fabric for a project "just because" is a luxury and I am certainly grateful I had the money to spend yesterday - a lot of people don't.
I have gleaned information off other blogs and through looking at fabric shops online but really, I don't know the names of most designers, fabric lines or which ones are the most desirable fabrics to have, and I like it that way. I'd rather just discover something myself and buy it because I fell in love with it (and it was reasonably priced!) - and I don't know enough to purchase something based on a recommendation or a good review, or even a (possibly) inaccurate picture on a website...I like touching the fabrics I am looking at, and pulling different ones over to see how they all go together (or not, as the case may be) - to me, that's part of the fun of it.
I guess all I'm saying is that to fellow Aussies who like fabric, please go and have a look at your local Spotlight if you haven't already, you might be pleasantly surprised too.
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