Start Your Own...With Celtic Fusions Fabric

Our guest blogger this week is Gwen of Celtic Fusion Fabrics.  Gwen has been in business in the UK for4 years.  Her shop is filled with fun, quirky, eclectic prints that would brighten up any project.  You can follower her blog, which is chock full of eye candy, or her facebook page, but really what you want is to hit the online fabric shop.  There you'll find a dizzying array of happiness from Alexander Henry, Amy Schlimer, Anna Maria Horner, Cloud 9, Echino, Kokka, Riley Blake and Monaluna to name a few.

Gwen has super-generously offered readers of this post a chance to win 6 fat quarters designed by Sarah Jane for Michael Miller. 

"This range was inspired by her own feelings of childhood, as well as her  children’s. Simple play, creative play…the kind of play that requires imagination and no agenda. So while this collection has a very classic feel, there is a lot of whimsicality in the color and design as well."

To enter, just go over to her online shop and mini fabric bundle that you love.  Come back here and leave a comment including the name of your favorite parcel.  Gwen will draw a winner on Sunday night.

Thank you, Gwen, for writing such an insightful and funny post for us this week!

I suppose Celticfusionfabrics was an accident really.  I definitely had not planned on opening an online shop at all.  It just sort of developed. When I was in University in Dublin (too many years ago) I sold leather scraps, ribbons and trims on a stall at Mother Redcaps market.  To be honest I definitely did not love it ... the rain ... jeepers the rain and the early hours were even worse.  To be honest it was torture.  But it was extra cash for the college years.

It was then only in the later half of my years in Theatre and Film that people were always saying how difficult it was to source unusual fabric for curtains, upholstering chairs etc.  I always had pieces left over from small projects and I wanted to get rid of them so I starting selling on ebay.  It was really a way to get rid of my unwanted cloth rather than thinking ‘I can make  this a career choice’.. and so the shop was born.  My hubbie is an accountant so he kept me on the straight and narrow with my books.  I suppose it was not so risky as I had a full time job.  Having the shop was a great way to source fabrics for myself, place them on the shelf and stroke them adoringly.

Firstly, with starting off, you have got to have a real passion for it.  There are going to be late hours, answering customer queries and advertising yourself . I  just started with contacting suppliers in the UK ordered in small amounts and took it from there. I do think that starting up you need someone to help you keep within you limits of the cash that you can spend.  Best to start small and see how you get on.  Do your research, there are definite trends and seasons for cloth and fabric designers. A bargain bolt of pink flamingos with green stripes might seem like a good idea, but will anyone want to buy any from you?   Probably not.  Trust me I know.

 

Sourcing unusual items for your craft or your shop is time consuming, but it is fun and you really have got to love what you are selling in order to sell to someone else (but I really did love the flamingo fabric – just no one else loved it as much as I did).

Now with the shop and a full time job it has being quite difficult tying to find the time to have sewing projects on the go, but there have being so many babies born over the past couple of months it has being unavoidable to not want to make and create for little people. It is something that I would love to do more of and I really admire crafters who  have the will to stay at home, have kiddies, rustle up 10 quilts a week,  keep the house and stay sane … as that is serious multi tasking.

A walk in bricks and mortar shop would be fantastic.  You would get to meet your customers face to face and buying fabric online is not easy for people, even for myself.  It is one of those items  that you just want to touch get a feel for the weight, the colour, etc.  But I could not see that happening for a while.  I love the stability of my job and my colleagues and the shared coffee breaks. Saying that I spend many Saturdays wandering around the fabric shop in London with great envy. So a bricks and mortar shop is definitely not on the cards.  But, I am starting to screen print a fabric line for the shop: one colour prints on linen.  Its been great fun designing and experimenting.  To be honest I am  more nervous about that than I ever was about starting celticfusionfabrics. I don’t know why.  Strange…  eh?

Thank you to Cindy for giving me the opportunity to write on her blog,

Gwen