Fabricville

This Fabricville is sad. It’s for sure seen better days, maybe in 1980 something. I went in looking for a current trendy fabric design to be swallowed up by a sea of micro fleece prints and patterns surely created to be sewn into bears and bunnies wearing dresses with lace trim. Which you can also pick up here. No one talked to me the whole time I wandered around like an idiot through racks upon racks of dead fabric. I guess I got pretty woman-​ed here. I didn’t look like their regular clientele, so no one bothered with me. Surprisingly I left empty handed, jumped back into my time machine and went home. If you’re looking for fabric to make a baby quilt with, or a big fleece snuggie. This is your place. Other than that. good luck.

As a non-​crafter, Fabricville is not really my kind of place from the get-​go but I do admit that there are lots of reasons why I might pop in. Honestly? If a craft involves just basic manipulation of pre-​cut fabric, it might just fall within my skill set.
This location is close by and well stocked which is great, however, there were some definite downsides from my visit. First, the parking lot seems a bit dangerous to me — just car-​length from busy Cole Harbour Road and packed with older shoppers attempting to back out directly onto it. Yikes.
Second, the place doesn’t seem to have staffing under control. During the middle of the day on a Tuesday, this place was the hottest scene for the stay-​at-​home crowd that you could find. Staff were running around, shouting instructions back and forth, and generally underserving customers. When you can’t pay up until someone cuts your fabric, it meant a very, very long wait. Not cool for someone like myself who generally wants to leave as quickly as possible.
All in all, it’s a good resource for me but perhaps not as easy from a customer’s perspective as I’d like it to be.

This place has been around for ages, and despite its odd location, it seems to still be doing well for itself all these years later. I remember going there in eighth grade to pick out fabric for the pair of shorts I had to make for home economics (remember when school still had that course?). While my sewing hasn’t improved much in the years since, I still pop in every few years to pick up this or that for some minor repairs or little craft projects.
They have a pretty large selection of fabrics to choose from, as well as textile-​based crafting accessories. Ribbons, buttons, batting, some beads, thread, needles, and all kinds of fasteners line the walls. If you’re overwhelmed, like me, or don’t quite know how to fix something, the staff is very helpful. I went in a few weeks ago to fix the straps of a practically new dress, and they were able to suggest a different type of fastener that worked much better than what I was originally planning to use.
Overall, it’s a nice little store tucked off the beaten path in Cole Harbour that’s bright, clean, and friendly. What more could you ask for out of your fabric store?