Holiday Threads & Fabrics

A couple of weeks ago my Fiancé and I returned from our summer holiday in Yorkshire, we stay in a small and very beautiful village near Settle in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.  We had such a great time away but rather than buying the kind of souvenirs that most folk buy I am always drawn to anywhere that has fabric or any other textiles, you never know what you might find.

This year we visited lots of places we had not been to before and came across lots of wonderful outlets that stock both local and other textiles.

These are all wool yarn products made by the West Yorkshire Spinners; the dark brown yarn on the left is Jacob Wool from local flocks too, it is quite soft and is highly valued for its colour as it needs no dyeing – thus it is one of the most environmentally friendly textile product I have ever come across (dyeing uses vast amounts of water and produces a great deal of pollution worldwide).

In the middle is a mixed yarn made with British Alpaca, Ryeland wool and Shetland wool also made by the West Yorkshire Spinners.

On our Grand Tour (a driving, sight-seeing tour that takes in all the tiny – sometimes a bit treacherous – roads that are little traversed by most folk) we stopped in Grassington and came across an interior design shop with a bargain bucket outside, these pieces were all £1 each and I will use the two on the left for decorative panels on jackets and the two on the right will go into some new bags very soon.

Cotton fabrics are always useful and the patterns printed on them are almost limitless, these are two I have not seen before and we really liked them for future projects.

At the Courtyard Centre just outside Settle there is a shop where you can buy Moon Tweeds made up into gorgeous Men’s jackets which got me quite excited a couple of years ago; I was delighted to discover that Quilting Antics just down the road from the holiday cottage now stocks a vast selection of Moon Tweeds, both apparel and upholstery fabrics – I was in seventh heaven riffling through them.  The three small pieces, bought by weight, will also be used for decorative touches in future products.

This last piece of Moon Tweed from the previous photo I am going to make into a new waistcoat (to expand my growing collection) and will use the grey printed cotton for the back of it and a light grey or blue lining inside, depending on what looks best with it.  This new waistcoat I won’t be embroidering as I want to show off the tweed and put some welted pockets in, rather more like a men’s waistcoat.

If, like me, you are a total textiles anorak, keeping your eye open wherever you go is a must as current trends have regional variations because of local tastes, and on your travels you may find some real gems that are not available where you normally buy your fabrics. I can’t wait to make my waistcoat as whenever I wear it I will be sporting my holiday memories and it will make me smile –

lots!