vlog | english girl at home

June 17, 2017
by Charlotte Leave a comment

Fabric Shopping and Sightseeing in Seoul

In April, Phil and I spent a week on holiday in Seoul.

My latest vlog contains a few clips from the holiday: sightseeing, plus fabric shopping in Dongdaemun and Gwangjang Markets. It also features a few me-made garments which I wore regularly during the trip; my Tilly & the Buttons Cleo dungarees, Named Inari Tee Dress, and By Hand London Victoria Blazer.

You can view the vlog here:

Dongdaemun Market is an enormous building housing a huge number of separate fabric and haberdashery stalls and shops over seven stories. I’d highly recommend Marie’s blog post, and the information Marie links to, if you plan to visit. The stalls in Dongdaemun appeared to have unusual and high quality fabrics, especially knits. However, the vast majority of stalls don’t have bolts of fabric ready to cut from; instead the stalls have samples on display, and fulfill your orders from their warehouses for collection at the market or delivery to your hotel.

I wimped out of buying fabric from Dongdaemun, but did treat myself to a linen fabric from Gwangjang Market. Gwangjang is a maze-like covered market, almost entirely dedicated to fabrics and haberdashery. Gwangjang is more home-sewer friendly than Dongdaemun, with stalls selling fabric from the bolt and pre-cut lengths, although I did find Gwangjang to have much less unusual fabrics than Dongdaemun. I spotted a few sewing-related services on offer in Gwangjang, such as scissor sharpening and seamstresses. Not too far away, in the area surrounding Euljiro 4(sa)-ga Station (exist 3 and 4), we wandered across an area specialising in sewing machine shops.

Finally, we tried Namdaemun Market because I’d read online that fabric was available, however, after a good look around and checking with the tourist information, we found that there was just one stall selling a very basic selection of cottons. Namdaemun is worth visiting for the food stalls, but no good if you’re in the mood to fabric shop.

A few photos of textile and haberdashery items in Seoul palace museums are below.

Ironing boards, sewing box and scissors:

Istanbul Fabric Shopping & Sightseeing Vlog

Back in November, Phil and I spent a week in Istanbul. I filmed some footage of our holiday, which you can see in my latest vlog:

As mentioned in the vlog, I used to travel regularly to Istanbul for work, but never had much success fabric shopping. I’d heard that the (mostly weekday) markets were the best place to shop for fabrics, but never managed to explore any due to work commitments.

On this trip, I found lots of fabric stalls at Çarşamba (Wednesday) market in Kirmasti, Fatih, which is featured in the vlog. I also visited Kadiköy market, but there wasn’t any fabric on sale on the day we visited (possibly due to season or time of day, as we arrived quite late).

A few photos of Çarşamba market, followed by some other photos from the trip, are below:

October 25, 2016
by Charlotte 1 Comment

A Peek Inside “Make It, Own It, Love It” & a Giveaway!

The first book by sewing blogger and Great British Sewing Bee 2015 winner Matt Chapple, Make It, Own It, Love It, was released last week.

My latest vlog contains a look inside the book. Check it out here:

I have two copies of the book to giveaway! If you would like to win a copy, leave a comment below the video on Youtube (here) by Sat 29th October at midnight BST. I’ll randomly select two winners on Sunday 30th. And, if you enjoy the videos on my channel, do subscribe!

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free copy of Make It, Own It, Love It by publisher Jacqui Small in exchange for blogging about it, all opinions expressed are my own.

October 4, 2016
by Charlotte 6 Comments

SewBrum 2016 Wrap-Up

The 2016 SewBrum meet-up took place on Saturday 24th September.

I’m not planning to publish a weekly vlog, but I am planning to publish one every so often when I have something to share. I filmed a little bit of footage during SewBrum which you can view below:

As in previous years, the day whizzed by! We started the day by taking over the Edwardian Tearooms at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery – and I do mean taking over. From there, we wandered across town to the Rag Market, and nearby Barry’s Fabrics and Fancy Silk Store. Rhiannon introduced me to a stall in the Indoor Market which specialises in wax print, which I hadn’t spotted before, and Charlotte recommended a nearby stall which has a huge selection of cotton and novelty prints.

Over 100 of us traveled into Moseley Village in the afternoon to visit Guthrie & Ghani for shopping, chatting, a pattern and fabric swap, and charity raffle. The raffle, plus donations given for tea and cake, raised £465 for the The Eve Appeal gynaecological cancer charity.

Huge thanks to everyone who came along, I hope you had a good time & managed to meet some new-to-you sewists. It was lovely to meet people I haven’t chatted to before, as well as to catch-up with friends, including some I’ve never met in person before.