Britex Fabrics in San Francisco

on May 1, 2010 by Chanteuse Designs Sewing Leave a comment

Britex Store Downtown SF

There is no other store for fabric then San Francisco’s own Britex. Honestly, if you are a fabric hound you owe yourself to visit this store at least once in your lifetime. I was downtown last week and decided to head in with camera in hand this time and share the love.

As you can see, there is so much beautiful fabric under one roof you can spend all day. Along with a small fortune, but honestly the mills where some of these fabrics come from must be made of pearls. OK, I exaggerate but the fabrics here run from $5.00 per yard to something like $3,000 per yard and going. Definitely Not for the beginner Home Ec project. But then again, FACT: you sew better with higher quality fabric. Quality is one of my favorite words and as a non shopaholic, when you buy fabric so beautiful your creativity genes go into overhaul. Why go anywhere else?

Britex Store

Britex is literally an institution for San Francisco and has 3 floors of fabric and the 4th floor is for notions, patterns and buttons. The Button gallery is incredible as you can see below. When I started making my handbags, I would go in and spend one hour (and I won’t tell you how much) and load up on the….. “jewelry” ….. for my bags.

Associates asked me where I got my supplies and would faint when I told them. They would buy online without knowing the quality and spending weeks searching. Personally, I could (and did in the beginning) spend weeks online looking for the kind of quality without results. In Britex I could nail in one hour my needs for a year or two!

So, you choose: If you like searching the web, there are plenty of sites for notions. OR, my preference is heading down to Britex, seeing my favorite sales girl (Maya), chatting away and going home loaded. Sunshine is for playing tennis and not being stuck online or in a mall. Know what I mean!?

Button Gallery

See what I mean? I will let the photo tell you the rest of the story. Do enjoy the wonderful fabrics. And just when I got home from California, in my mailbox was……yep a Britex Sale. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Thank God I got home in time. This is a great sale and how I got started sewing again after my corporate life. You owe yourself a remnant. Even if you do nothing with it for a long time. Splurge. This is a once a year sale (I believe).

Remnant Floor

Fabric Floor

Notions

My Postcard Arrived

This Monday and Tuesday

Talk about bad timing ;-)

So next time you are in Downtown San Francisco, treat yourself to this wonderful store. Take your time as you browse through the many bolts of fabric, buttons, trims and amazing designs. And don’t forget to check out the celebrity plaque on the wall. Maybe one day your name will be added.