The Country of Fabricland
Hard to Find, Hard to Navigate
Fabricland is exactly what it sounds like; it’s a massive warehouse style fabric and notion (buttons, zippers, thread, etc.) store the size of a country. An interesting fact about Fabricland stores is that they like to hide. They don’t like to be out in the open where randoms can walk in. They tend to be hidden in the deepest depths of a city for only the fabric junkies who painstakingly search for such places. I’m not exaggerating!
In Red Deer, Fabricland used to be an exception to this rule. It was down gasoline alley in a car dealership-like building that stuck out like a flamingo in Antarctica. With sleazy hotels, truck stops, vehicle dealerships and the only other remotely similar shop, a tea store. it was a fabulous place to for a fabric store. Maybe that’s why they move. It just didn’t belong. Maybe it was because it was too easy to find and the the non-fabric fanatics could get in.
A few years ago the shop decided to move downtown to a building that resembles an oversized red barn--way more subtle. You would think that a red barn in downtown Red Deer would stand out even worse than a fabric store down gasoline alley, but apparently I was very wrong. It really blends in well with the bus warehouse and the cheese factory that are near it.
What caught my attention last night, (which is completely off topic, but I have to add) is that it really smelled of the most amazing fish and chips right outside the front doors. The only two restaurants anywhere near it are the Old Mexico Taco Buffet and the Pho Thuy Duong. Neither restaurant makes this, but it smelled so amazing that my hungry stomach wanted it! I have to go back to investigate.
Last night, I was able to find Fabricland on my first try, which was a complete fluke. The fog and the fish and chips distracted me in just the right way to lead me to a near collision with the store. Now if I drove, I know I would have struggled a lot more. All the one ways that the city decided to use in this area are confusing. It’s like they wanted to get you so close to Fabricland that you can see the building, dangle it in your face, and then rip you away in a completely different direction. Beyond maddening.
When I entered this fabric country, I had one mission. Find stretch lace. I was greeted with thousands upon thousands of fabric bolts that looked like a sea of puked up flowers. I know there are other analogies, but this is honestly the best one to describe what the Fabricland looked like yesterday with its mix of fall, winter, and Christmas fabrics. There were so many different beautiful colours (and honestly horrific ones too) all smashed together, that it can only be described as the most perfect chaos.
What’s so perfect is the shear amount of fabrics. If I took all the fabric bolts and stacked them, I’m betting I could make it to the moon, or maybe even to mars. I know for sure that I could gift wrap Earth five times over with the fabrics available. But not only do they have a lot of fabrics in general, they have a mind numbing amount of types. Just a few that I noticed were batiste, flannel, crepe, terry, velvetine and of course a whole entire area set out just for cotton. It’s like an exotic petting zoo of fabrics. And I’m not even getting into the colours yet. If you took a painter's studio and could pick it up and give it a good shake, that would describe the colours. Now imagine navigating through this!
In an attempt to help the customers wade through the fabrics, there are three main sections:
The fashion fabric
This takes up the middle section of the store and has no organisation within it besides having a theme section (Christmas, of course, this time) right as you walk in. If they have an actual system beyond that, I sure didn’t see it last night. Blue lace and purple crepe were all in the same area let alone the twill weaves that were randomly placed in between.
The quilting cotton
This is the section to the right that is super squishy (I was told from a quilter that they love to cuddle and that’s why the close quarters) with the rows of shelving being over stuffed with bolts of cotton. You can tell that the perfection nazis live in this area. The cottons are separated into the different colours and pattern themes, making it look like the array you would get if you were to organise all the fruit and vegetables at a farmers market.
The upholstery section
This area looks like what you would get if the truck headed to the farmers market, exploded, and everything went smoosh, all over the highway, for all the other vehicles to run over. A complete disaster zone. This section is found at the very back of the store and yesterday I could see why. No one would enter a store if that's what they were greeted with. The bolts for these fabrics are massive which makes them difficult to move or display. Apparently, the best way that Fabricland has found to display these fabrics is by laying them all down in rows on a metal shelf and piling them on top of each other. This arrangement makes it impossible to see what the patterns and colouration of the fabrics are. You have to pull out every single bolt to tell. Not a fun task. Thankfully, I was only snooping in this area last night.
Back to the mission
What I was looking for was stretch lace. This meant looking in the largest area of the store. The fashion fabric section. To find it in this disorganised/organised set up, I decided to ask for help right away. This didn’t go as well as I had hoped.
Apparently the lady I asked was having a really bad day, since she dismissed me by simply walking away. I knew she heard me. I have a booming voice that I know wasn’t sucked up into the fabrics around us. I also didn’t think it was that silly of a question. I wasn’t asking for her to show me all the brown fabrics in the store (which there are way too many to even begin to wrap your head around). I thought stretch lace was specific enough. I even considered her as being the fish and chips culprit. To get the place to have that strong of a smell, she would have needed to eat copious amounts. I’d assume this would result in a major stomach ache, making her running away from me completely understandable and most definitely necessary.
I had come to terms with the thought I was going to be left alone to navigate the rows upon rows of fabric, when she decided to turn around and help. I wish she would have kept walking. The scowl I got! I thought her and I were going to die. The sheer pain and annoyance I could see in her eyes was immense. I’m now genuinely scared of this lady. But like I said, she did help me. Out of the five (ish, it was probably more, but I lost count since I was very concerned about this ladies well being) different areas she showed me, only two sections had lace, but she did point them out. I’m glad I knew what I was looking for so I could pick the right lace from the ones she showed me.
I definitely recommend knowing what you are looking for and what the fabric feels like before coming here to buy. Google like mad! Know if it has a short pile, is woven, has one or two way stretch, or is scratchy, so you can navigate the store with both sight and touch (a helpful site with this). Even better, come in without a specific idea in mind. I’m sure if it wasn’t for having to ask about where something precise was, I would have had a much more enjoyable and less frightening experience. I would have navigated the store like a happy-go-lucky butterfly floating in the breeze, but instead, I felt like one in a hurricane.
A bolt of lace isn’t heavy, but some of the other fabrics definitely are. The best feature that this Fabricland has is that you can set all your fabric on the cutting table, leave a sign saying you’re still shopping (not all have the little signs), and keep on going without having to lug everything around. People who shop here would have mile long arms if this wasn’t an option.
I should mention the other non-fabric areas of the store. There’s a curtain section which I didn’t have time to check out (this takes up the left side of the store), a pattern station, which is so small I don’t know how more than one person could use it, and to the far right are the notions, which for the most part, are organised pretty well. What isn’t organised in this area are the waist bands, tassels, and ribbons. It took me over half an hour to find the nude waist band I needed for my project. I should have asked for help...well, maybe not! There were enough employees walking around, but I didn’t want to chance another scary situation.
Another thing that I should add is that their setup is out of date. The patterns are organised in rows of filing cabinets (at least eight) which the workers have to search through after you give them a scrap of paper with info about the pattern you want. I’m honestly not patient enough for this system. The computer systems that they use are also painful. In order to pay, it took at least ten minutes. They have a little machine that writes on the back of the ticket you are given when you get your fabric cut, as part of your receipt. I thought it was the coolest thing until I realised that I could write it out by hand faster than this machine could go.
Maybe I just went in with a negative, biased view yesterday after having looked hours for fabric shops in Red Deer, only to find that Fabricland is the only one. I now can see why their pricing (the fabric I got was $24 a meter) is outrageous. If it wasn’t for the 50% off sale yesterday, I never would have been able to afford the fabric I picked. Having only the one fabric shop also explains why the workers don’t have to be really friendly or the store be organised much. There just are no other options that customers can go to. As you can probably tell, I have a love/hate relationship with Fabricland. I love all the options they have in fabrics, but there are so many other areas that they can work on. For starters, their location. Who would put a fabric shop between a bus warehouse and a cheese factory?
