I’ve recently returned from an epic 18 day trip to the USA.  This was my first ever trip to the states and I was super excited!! We spent the first 2 nights in New York and then travelled for 2 days with a group of friends, firstly stopping in Philadelphia and then on to Washington.  We left our friends in Washington and continued our journey to visit three sisters that my partner has known for over 30 years.  Our first stop was in New Hope, PA for 1 night and then back to Philadelphia for 2 nights.

In Philadelphia I found an amazing sewing shop called Handcraft Workshop.  They’ve got a small range of beautiful fabrics and haberdashery and also run sewing classes.  I got chatting to the lady who ran the shop and sh’e going to start stocking my book!  I joined their mailing list and now receive regular updates on what classes they are running… it’s such a shame I’m too far away to go to any! I bought some really cute cat fabric, a child’s dress pattern by Rae and a hand embroidery project.  Sadly they are all still in the bag in a cupboard and have not been used.

Handcraft Workshop is at 7224 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
(215) 247-1440 |  shop@handcraftworkshop.com  |  www.handcraftworkshop.com
Tuesday – Friday 12pm – 7pm  |  Saturday 11am-5pm  |  Sunday 12pm – 4pm

I really wanted to join them for their trip to New York City’s Garment District but decided to just take a picture of the advert and plan my own visit!

The next stopping point on our trip was Elmira in New York.  Here I was taken to three giant craft shops – Jo Ann’s, Hobby Lobby and Michaels.  I was in fabric heaven!

I’d heard of Jo Ann’s from other people’s blogs and sewing forums so was very excited to see what they had to offer.  I wasn’t disappointed!  I bought lots of fabrics to make Mr B some more shirts and bought a length of knitted fabric for a dress for myself.  Yes.. .they are still in the bag, in the cupboard waiting to be used…

Michael’s don’t sell fabric but they do have lots of yarn and every other type of craft item you could imagine.  I bought myself some yarn, sprays of beads and some fabric leaves – I’ve got a plan to knit and crochet some flowers and thought these would work well for the bouquets.

Our final stopping point on the trip was a return visit to New York City to do more sightseeing and to catch up with friends who live in the city.  We arrived back in the city at 5pm so headed for the Empire State Building for the incredible views.  We then went on a mission to find Mood Fabrics.  It wasn’t as obvious to find as I thought.  We found Mood Home – a huge shop selling upholstery fabrics and was a bit confused about where the dress fabrics were.  You have to go into another building, which looks like the entrance to a block of flats, head to the 3rd floor and there it is.

Wow!  I thought I’d found some brilliant fabric shops already but this blew my mind!  There really is every type of fabric and haberdashery item you could think of.  There’s 2 floors of fabrics in here!  I managed to lose Mr B (he wasn’t impressed!) as there is row, after row, after row of rolls of fabrics, all arranged in sections according to the fabric type.  It was probably a good thing that we arrived with only 15 minutes to shop as I could easily have spent hours in here and spent an absolute fortune.  As it was, I bought nothing!! To be honest, there’s so much in this shop I really wouldn’t know where to start.  This place is a definite to visit if you can but take lots of money and a spare suitcase!