Shopping for Craft Materials

So I limited myself to 45 minutes and S$50 on 14 Dec at the famed Yongle Fabric Market. If I didn't, I would have spent hours wandering not just through the market but also along the streets around the market. It was probably a good thing that I didn't find the Bear Mama shop.

Getting there was easy: take a train to Beimen station. Look for the Tacheng Street exit and walk against the traffic for a few minutes and you'll start seeing fabric shops on both sides of the street. I'm not into tailoring type of fabrics but crafting, so I was looking out for cotton / cotton-linen prints.

If you make your way past the shophouses, you'll then reach the market proper. There are 4 levels. I don't remember the first. I just went in and there was a colourful flight of steps up to the level 2. The 3rd level is under renovation so the tenants moved to the 4th level which is only accessible by the lift.

The first shop we saw was 布哥哥的店. They have many cotton / cotton-linen precuts that I was stuck there for a while trying to limit myself to only a few pieces. A fat quarter cotton-linen cost NT50 (about S$2.50) which is really cheap considering the quality and print. Incidentally, I opened up the folded fat quarter when I got back and saw on the selvedge that they printed it themselves. I checked out their website from the sticker on the fat quarter and saw that they also ship to Singapore. Maybe I'll check them out when I'm done with sewing these.

We walked around a bit more looking for other pre-cuts and snagged a couple of laminated cotton-linen prints, canvas and liberty-type cotton prints. The largest piece was a yard of giraffes peeking out from triangle prints. Too cute :)

If you're also doing the tourist-stamping thing, stop by the visitor information centre at the junction. That's where I got the largest stamp for the whole trip. A shop further down the road also had stamps outside.

If I would go again, I'd probably limit myself to an hour and higher budget. I'd skip level 4 because I'm not into tulle or pinstripes.

May the force be with you

During the free Spoonflower fat quarter promotion last year, DS chose this print. He likes the kiddy Star Wars print. It's not an allover print, just a strip across the bottom. There are 8 8" squares with different characters of the movie. I've not figured out yet what to make out of them, maybe a cushion cover?

This is a dual zip pencil case. I managed to find 2 star zipper pulls. Zip was from Daiso, the 1m long one. The star zipper pulls too, but they were on another colour zip. Since the Star Wars print is rather narrow, it'd be a rather 'narrow' pencil case but I decided to 'bump' it up and add the denim. 'Tis a bit more rugged, no? DS chose the lining, a Japanese cotton geometric print in beige and brown. He also asked for a D-ring though I don't know what he's going to put there.

This pic is not the latest.

I studded DS' name with 3cm studs. That's a lot of tiny claws for me to fold in but DS likes the effect.

Have a blessed day!

Yippee!!! Free fat quarter coming our way

Enter ETSYPARTY12 at checkout at Spoonflower!

Choose an existing design or create your own. Shipping to Singapore starts from USD2.

Have a blessed day!