Sourcing secondhand fabric: in person
It’s time for the second installment of this series on sourcing and sewing with secondhand fabric. This time I wanted to cover my thoughts, opinions, hints and tips on sourcing fabric in person. I will preface this by saying, I’m based in the UK, so this post may be less applicable to you if you live in another country. I’m also open to suggestions in the comments, so feel free to let me know your experiences! I’ll be updating this post over time.
As a reminder, over the next few months I intend to cover:
shopping for secondhand fabric in person (this post!)
secondhand or thrifted fabrics: how to identify natural vs. man made fibres
uses for secondhand fabric in your sewing practice, specifically focusing on scrap or remnant fabrics
secondhand shopping and my thoughts on the potential impact on intersectional environmentalism
This isn’t an exhaustive list and I’ll most likely be adding to it as other ideas occur to me.
I spoke a little over on the first installment of this series, “Sourcing secondhand fabric: online” about some general thoughts with buying secondhand fabric. I won’t rehash old ground, you can click through to read that post if you’re interested. In summary though, I would say my biggest takeaway would be to be flexible in your sewing plans. Be guided by the material. You may only have access to a small quantity and may need to utilise your creativity to make the best use of that fabric.
My favourite place to source secondhand fabrics has to be charity shops. Thrift shops, op shops, whatever your local name is for them, they’re a treasure trove of unloved goods. Some charity shops in the UK specialise in haberdashery, having specific sections of the shop dedicated to fabric and notions. It’s definitely worth identifying these early in your sewing journey and checking in regularly. The nice thing about a charity shop that specialises in haberdashery, is you can use it as a place to donate your unwanted notions and fabric, as well as picking up new stash. Most charity shops will accept donations of fabric, but I suspect those without a dedicated haberdashery section may struggle to sell cuts of fabric. Whenever you’re donating anything to charity, be sure to ask yourself the question of whether you would want to buy or use the item. It’s a good sense check to determine whether something is high quality enough for someone else to see its value, or whether it might be worth considering recycling it instead. If you’re not sure, ask before donating!
For buying, however, be sure to check out the brick-a-brac section. I’ve found bags of tapestry yarns, embroidery threads, sewing patterns (I once found the Merchant & Mills Camber dress paper pattern for £1!) , buttons and zips in this section. Often they’re pretty cheap, since these items are less in demand than other things sold more frequently. Sometimes you find remnants and scrap fabrics in bags in this section.
Next step for me, is the soft furnishings. Often large, uncut bolts of fabric will be hung up alongside the curtains and duvet covers. Be open to reusing home decor items, instead of buying fabric by the metre. My Modern Sewing Co. Overshirt and Closet Core Morgans were both once a pair of IKEA navy cotton twill curtains. I won’t lie, if your style preference is more for solid colours, you may struggle in the home decor section. They’re there, so it’s still worth checking, but the floral, paisley, checked cohort is definitely over represented. These fabrics are great for project bags (see my collection of Sierra Tote bags made from deadstock and remnants). This is one of my core tenants of thrift shopping - be flexible with your sewing plans and use the fabric the universe has brought to you.
The last step, for me, is to check out the clothing. This takes more of a time commitment, as there is generally a lot more of it than the other sections. However, I’ve had good results sewing with secondhand clothing in the past. Most of my running tees are recycled athletic wear (check out this post and this post). I’ve resized over shirts, dyed wool sweaters and reused men’s shirts for the cotton fabric. Shearling coats make great linings, I’ve just finished a Helen’s Closet Wildwood vest using an old shearling coat as the lining fabric and blogged about using secondhand fabric for lining slippers over here. I’m going to talk about secondhand clothes shopping and how it potentially impacts marginalised communities in other post, but I wanted to acknowledge here that I hold size privilege, being a small person who can reuse larger sized clothing in my sewing practice. I’ll dive more into this soon (it’s a whole post in itself!) but wanted to flag that whilst the clothing section is obviously full of fabric waiting to be reused, it’s sensible to be cognizant of what you’re buying and how other people may need or use that piece.
The key to successful charity shopping, in my opinion, is constant vigilance. Don’t pop in once and be disappointed to leave empty handed. Regular, repeat checking is the way to go. The stock changes all the time so your chances of finding something useful are the same each time. Once you’ve got a method sorted, it can be a quick 5 minutes, just to hit up the sections of the shop most likely to yield results.
Next up! Car boot sales (or car booter tooters as my mother in law calls them). I’ve had a real mix of results from car boot sales, so if I’m honest, I don’t bother as much any more. They inevitably require getting up early at the weekend, which is not high on my priority list. The weather is unreliable in the UK, meaning you could arrive to find it’s chilly and raining and most of the stall holders have packed up early. Crafting being somewhat of a niche hobby, also means people are rarely selling secondhand fabric or notions. Car boot sales can have the odd hidden gem (I once found an entire stall of fabric, as a person was selling off their whole stash!) but the common items I see are books, DVDs, bric-a-brac, some soft furnishings and a small amount of clothes. I’ve had some luck unearthing bags of buttons or old craft books, but for the most part, I personally consider car boot sales a bit of a dud for craft supplies. You might be lucky enough to thrift a beautiful pair of curtains or a wool blanket you could use for fabric but definitely go expecting to be disappointed. You might be pleasantly surprised!
I wrote about buying on local websites, like Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree, over on my post about sourcing fabric online. These sites bridge the gap between online shopping (since you’re browsing stock on an app or website) and in person (since you’re generally collecting from another app user). I’ll repeat here, there are a lot of scam artists on these sites, so be aware! Don’t click on any links people send you and definitely don’t send money online unless you’re very sure the person is legit. In my opinion, these sites are best dealt with in person, with cash, to avoid any risks of losing money. However! Don’t let the fear of scammers put you off. I’ve had some incredible luck on secondhand apps. I bought a job lot of vintage Laura Ashley fabric from one person clearing out her mother’s stash and a huge job lot of jersey fabric from a 'jobber’ (secondhand fabric dealer). You regularly see people clearing out old fabric so it’s worth keeping an eye on your local area.
Top tip! If you save posts you like, even if you have no intention of buying them but they represent what you’re looking for, the algorithm will learn and offer you more of similar listings.
There are some new apps on the block, like Olio, where people give things away for free or sell secondhand items. These are worth looking into, I’m a very new Olio user so can’t specifically speak for it as a means of sourcing craft materials just yet, but you can find all kinds of secondhand items, as well as food on Olio.
Those are the main places I source secondhand fabrics and notions, let me know in the comments if you have any extra places to recommend! I’ll be looking back on these posts over time and updating them as needed. Tell me about any amazing secondhand finds you’ve made!