San Francisco:
The Silk Trading Company: Not a bargain outlet, but if you get any
chance visit the Silk Trading Company, which BTW is not open on
weekends. This is a huge, warehouse-sized store crammed with fancy
silks, silks, silks (especially, all kinds of taffetas, including ones
with historic-styled allover embroidery). It's the kind of store you
walk around with your jaw dropping open the whole time.
Britex: This is also not a bargain store, but it is a big,
full-to-overflowing, four-story fabric store in downtown San Francisco.
They specialize in high-quality and hard-to-find fabrics of all kinds.
When I was writing sewing articles regularly for _Sew News_, and the
editors came out here once, they said at dinner that they personally
ranked Britex as the second-best fabric store in the US. (They traveled
around a lot for business, and went to every fabric store they could in
every city they visited. The best, they said, was G Street Fabrics in
what I understand was its heyday. I've never been to G Street, but
people say it's changed.)
Satin Moon: This is a small, but crammed, fabric store in a major
restaurant district of SF, which means you may have trouble parking.
(But you definitely will not have any trouble finding a place to eat, as
the district has several restaurants per block for a long stretch.)
Satin Moon carries good-quality fabrics and an interesting selection,
things you don't see in other local fabric stores.
There are a number of other fabric stores in San Francisco, but I see
these as the best ones. There are some little quilting fabric stores in
the Bay Area, but you can find those anywhere, and as for Jo-Ann's . . .
Outside San Francisco, but in the Bay Area:
Thai Silks: This store is south of San Francisco, in Los Altos. They
specialize in bargain silks, as bargains go around here. They have a
pretty good selection, especially if you either want something fairly
basic, or those rather heavy Chinese brocades that have a rayon back and
a silk face (those brocades are, however, pretty easy to buy around here).
Poppy Fabrics: This store is across the bay, on the border between
Berkeley and Oakland. Poppy is a large store that lately seems to
specialize more in home-dec and evening wear fabrics--but that of course
means many fabrics of interest to historic costumers. (Years ago, they
were a quilting fabric store specializing in tiny cotton prints.)
StoneMountain and Daughter: In Berkeley. A small store, with a good
selection of fairly "ordinary" fabrics. They used to be a great
discount store, but not any more, probably because a big Discount
Fabrics moved into the area (see below).
Discount Fabrics: In Berkeley. This is actually a chain, and there are
several other local stores. But somehow I only ever seem to go to the
one in Berkeley. (It's on the way home from my dentist's and I go every
time I have my teeth cleaned.) This Discount Fabrics is very large.
They actually carry both racks and racks of sketchily labeled fabrics of
all kinds and all levels of desirability, and some that are not
discounted, but which they seem to stock regularly. They regularly stock
a good selection of dupionis--they are nice dupionis, but the prices are
the same as everywhere else locally. They also always have bolts of silk
necktie fabrics, which I think are discounted, but since I seldom see
necktie fabrics for sale, I'm not sure what the going prices are.
Discount Fabrics is a serendipity shopping store--you either don't see
anything you'd even dream of buying, or you find something great. I
bought a whole bolt of great cream-colored sheer embroidered muslin
there once. (They'll happily sell to you buy the yard though.)
There are some other fabric stores in the East Bay, but I don't go to
them, or not much. Aside from the quilting stores:
There is a discount upholstery/drapery fabric store called Kay's
somewhere in Oakland. Or at least there used to be. I haven't been in a
long time. It used to be a good place to get discounted historic style
brocades.
Someone on h-costume--Theresa Ecker???--once pointed me to a huge and
really great upholstery/drapery discount store in San Mateo. I think. It
was somewhere, somewhat, south of San Francisco. She said they had some
great embroidered silk taffetas. I went there. I bought some great
embroidered silk taffeta. Then I lost the store name and address and
haven't been there since. Maybe someone on the list knows which store I
mean?
The North Bay, Marin County, probably also has fabric stores, but I
haven't been to the North Bay in years.
Fran
Lavolta Press Books on Historic Costuming
http://www.lavoltapress.com
Hope Greenberg wrote:
Hi -
I'm going to be on the west coast (U.S.) next week and am determined to
visit at least one fabric store! So, in San Francisco or in the LA area,
if you could visit one fabric store where you could be assured of a
fantastic bargain on silk, where would it be?
For silk, I'm thinking taffetas, embroidered, etc., things generally
suited to 18th/early 19th century wear.
Thanks.
- Hope
------------------
[EMAIL PROTECTED], U of Vermont
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