Recommend a dress fabric shop

My little GD has a toy, wooden, kitchen sink and she has an Amy Butler curtain covering the shelf underneath where she keeps her toy saucepans mollie.
She chose my last AB scrap I had left over from cushion covers for a friend.

You can never have too much fabric Versavisa

I hope you enjoy your course Sewsilver and thank you suzied for the Goldhawk Road info! Just put Goldhawk Road and fabric shops into 'search' and all the shops popped up.

Thanks suzied. It looks like a trip to Goldhawk Road is on the horizon. It sounds just what I need - a good browse around disordered shops, and 10 of them! A sharp and welcome contrast to the nearby Westfield Centre it seems.

Now all I have to do is sew the 9 pairs of curtains I have on the dining room table and then I can go with a clear conscience - not that conscience has stopped me before!

Yes if you are in London Goldhawk Road is the place to go. There are at least 10 fabric shops if not more. My favourite is Classic Textiles which sells liberty silks , wools, cotton lawn etc, loads of silk, linings you name it. All incredibly cheaply, I got some beautiful silk for lining or lingerie for £4 pm. I bought all the fabric for my daughters wedding there. I have got a cupboard full of fabric waiting for me to make into something. I must stop going there!
If you like a more orderly approach to fabric shops, I can recommend Fabrics Galore in Battersea.
I do like Abakhan online. everything I have bought from there has been great.

I'm visiting Oxford in April. Does anyone know of any good fabric\ haberdashery stores there please? I'm going on an upholstery course, partly to avoid being here on what would have been DH's birthday. I hope I come back with a few fingers intact, having never done it before. I buy fabric at Leon's in Manchester, they have a random but good selection.
As I'm busy packing the house up for the Big Move I realise how much fabric I have . I'd have to live to be about 103 to use it all. But still can't resist the temptation to browse fabric shops, it's all those lovely colours. As a poor student in London I used to wander about Liberty's fabric department for hours.

Our local JLP still sells Amy B designs - it's pricey, but all their fabrics are. I've only ever bought one lot of hers and I still haven't used it - it's lovely but a bit bold for me. Maybe this year I'll finally get round to finding something clever to do with it...so far I've used a little bit to line a denim iPad cover, looks lovely but there's still lots more...lol!

Hmm don't know if JL still stocks Amy Butler, just had a look.
This link might be useful, if you scroll down to the UK you find quite a number of fabric shops selling Amy B and no doubt others beside.
www.amybutlerdesign.com/buy/locator.php

I'm hoping fabric shops might eventually find their way back onto the high street the way wool shops have. I can remember the lovely clean smell of fabric and the crunch!? of the scissors in my local Gordon Thoday. It's just not the same buying online. I have bought small amounts of fabric from Cath Kidston but only when there's a sale on.
Our local John Lewis sells a small selection of linen now and I think there are still some Amy Butler designs available.

I can see me adding 'fabric stores' to all my pre-holiday/visit planning with a budget for fabric attached! Lol! Just visited my local Dunelm (it's been a while) and they get the thumbs up for haberdashery and sewing stuff (bigger selection that our local JLP but they don't sell dress fabrics, which is a shame but understandable. Can't have it all...

I keep hearing that Goldhawk Road in Shepherds Bush has several interesting fabric shops, but haven't got there yet. Does anyone have first hand experience of them?

Cloth of Gold in Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire: not very big, but lovely dress fabrics, AND well organised.

^^ just browsing their store,got carried away there. oops!

Abakhan also here on Merseyside they have the most amazing fabric's and sell really good bundles of trimmings/buttons/lace and even a massive selection of wool,hours can be lost just browsing their around the store.

Rita's in the market in Durham and she has a warehouse at Langley park. But really for patchwork. There is also a hotchpotch of a material shop in the main pedestrian area below the Post Office and opposite M&S but down a flight of uneven stone steps. I've no idea of the name.

Sadly, I suppose the decline in home dressmaking has dealt the death blow to many small fabric shops. There is a revival in knitting and "specialist" wool shops though where you can get advice, exotic wools, patterns, instruction - and in my case an emergency repair on a very complicated and expensive long waistcoat I had just finished and worn in to show. If anybody is in my area, The Wool Shop in Olney with wonderful Ana (Spanish) dispensing advice and enthusiasm in equal measure! I know this is advertising, but worth it. As the French say "Vaut le voyage"!!
I used to buy all my fabrics and patterns from a little shop near Richmond station (about 40 years ago!) and also Laura Ashley where I bought remnants of both dressmaking and furnishing fabrics which were made up into little pinafores and dungarees for the DDs.
John Lewis has reduced its dressmaking fabric section to a fraction of what there used to be but on the plus side it is now on the top floor, tucked away from all the hustle and bustle and best of all next to the coffee shop!

I do not sew but I agree, Dunelm Mill appears to have a good selection.

Soutra - this is another aladdin's cave-type shop that sells household/curtain fabrics mostly but some dress fabrics if you can dig them out! It's one of those shops that is overwhelming but has things that you didn't know you needed! It's muddled, messiness puts me off but otherwise it probably is really good value... (unless another shop has opened since I was last in Bletchley - had better find out!)

I buy from Abakhan which has branches in the Northwest and Wales, also Textile Express which has branches in Oswestry and Shrewsbury, you can buy online from both. Never quite the same as visiting Aladdins cave in person.

It's a bit far to go ( !!! ) but Britex fabric shop in San Francisco is absolutely fabulous. Just has to be seen to be believed and has fabrics that are out of this world. I am drooling just thinking about it.

I buy quilting fabrics from market stalls in Northallerton and Easingwold. Boyes stores have some fabrics but not a huge choice. Furnishing fabrics are much easier to source locally.

Mollie I am told there is an amazing fabric shop somewhere in Bletchley with every possible type. Can't vouch for it or even tell you where it is, but if you find it and it is any good - please let me know!!

When I do dress making for either myself or grand children I get most of my fabrics from the travelling fabric man, M Rosenberg and son. The website www.stitchfabrics.co.uk gives a selection of the fabrics, but there are way more than on the site when you visit one of the shows. He is based in London and visits sites mainly in the south east at various times of the year. I having been buying from him for longer than I care to remember and always come away with more lengths than I thought I wanted. The prices are very good and the quality of the fabrics is amazing.
Abakhan based in north Wales, but has stores in the north west, is another great place for fabrics of all types. I've visited there a few times and again have always bought more than I intended.
Hope this helps.

Don't sew but know people who do and one who does for a living. They recommend the Fancy Silk Store in Birmingham which is almost in the market. It is a jumble, not a posh laid out store but it has loads and loads of fabric, everything from weddings to patchwork. Only been there with a friend but it seems to have everything.

Why are our fabric shops like that? Every one that I know is like it! The most beautiful fabric shop I have ever seen was in Florence (0f course) and it was all glass, shiny floors and polished wood counters with chandeliers but what an array of fabrics! I stood outside, too intimidated by the suited assistants to actually go in but I'd love to go back!

Mason's in Abingdon is another muddled place, but like an Aladdin's cave. There are 3 shops, for dress fabrics and notions, haberdashery and craft, and knitting wool with furnishing fabrics. Last time I visited they were still doing the calculations and adding up on your paper bag, although I hear they have progressed to calculators at last!