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This is my extremely long guide to down-and-dirty fabric hunting in NYC:
Fashion District. If you're thinking of the grid of New York City streets, mid-twenties to early forties, mostly 7th ave and west (8th Ave, etc.). No real boundaries, but mostly, say, from 25th St. to 41st St., 7th Ave to 9th Ave. There are lots of notions places for buttons & ribbons centered around 39th-41st and 7th/8th. The sewing machine repair, supply, purchase, equipment places are from 23rd - 26th between 6th Ave and 7th Ave. Mostly not very open on weekends, Saturday more likely than Sunday. There's just loads and loads of fabric stores, and there are loads and loads that are "discount" fabric stores. "Discount" because so many of them use that in their names, and they do tend to be cheap. In my opinion, the best thing to do is to have an idea of what you want - what kind of fabric, what colors, and what yardage (are you making curtains, clothes, or just looking for tidbits for little craft projects?), and a total overall amount of money you can spend. Then you cruise.
The discount places really do often have great prices, but they're also often stuffed to the gills with weird and undesirable fabrics (really cheap quality, too much synthetics, weird prints, etc.). If you know what you want, you can sort of storm through. If you really know what you're looking for, tell them. They are usually really helpful, and often know what is there in all of the seeming mess. I have to be careful not to waste loads of time looking for good stuff - usually you find it pretty fast, and if it's not what you want, you can just leave. I've even timed myself - if in 10 minutes I'm not considering a fabric I seriously want to leave with, I get out.
Don't be afraid of non-discount places. Every fabric place has a sale section, and they've often got lots of great stuff, too. I have to be careful in them, though, not to spend too much time fondling all the fabrics I can't really use and planning all the fantastic things I could do with the beautiful $30/yard linen stripe...
If you're looking for cotton prints, watch store signs carefully, they sort of advertise them, and don't be afraid to ask. Some places have catalog binders full of pages of what cotton prints they have. I wish I could remember the exact location in the mid-thirties, but the place had an entire binder of vegetable and fruit and food prints, 2 or 3 for animals, probably an entire shelf full of florals...you told them the number, and they got the bolt of fabric for you. Very impressive.
Three places to get you started:
Spacesaver Hardware on 23rd between 6th and 7th Aves: lots of machines, new and used, lots of knowledge and expertise with making them run, and a funny collection of sewing paraphenalia (bin of random zippers, bin of random buttons, tailor's chalk, etc.)
City Quilters on 24th Street very close to 7th Ave: They have really really beautiful stuff, and lots of great sewing and embroidery tools and supplies.
Around the corner, on 7th Ave corner of 25th St. "Discount Fabrics": a very nice older gentleman who will help you find anything, make you a deal on anything (just be casual), and tell you stories about the neighborhood, the good old days, how everyone else will charge you too much, etc.
As with most places in the garment district, they mostly keep to "office hours" - they're not open much past 5 PM, and I think none of the three above are open on the weekends at all.
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By rani
On 10/13/03
