Bahamas Fabric Shopping
Oh how I wish I was still on the warm beaches of the Bahamas...but no. I'm prepping for over a foot of snow coming in the next few days. It's alright, I'll just be staring longingly at the beautiful fabrics I bought on the trip dreaming of wearing bathing suits and shorts instead of sweatshirts and alpaca socks.
When on vacation, or anywhere other than New Jersey, I love fabric shopping. There is something exciting about discovering fabrics you haven't seen before- or being able to see a line in person rather than on the internet. I mostly see quilt shops whenever searching for stores, which is great because I can find fabric for my bags, but the Bahamas was all about the apparel fabric.
We stayed in Atlantis, the beautiful resort on Paradise Island. It was an amazing experience, and the first time I've stayed at a resort. The location was stunning, the staff was wonderful and the food was amazing!
I did a quick search of fabric stores in the Bahamas and came up with this post from Sew Can She. It recommended Home Fabrics in Nassau and I really wanted to check that place out. Commonwealth Fabrics also kept coming up in my searches and after a quick look at a map, I discovered they were within a 5 minute walk of each other! SCORE!
We got a cab to Home Fabrics from our resort and 10 minutes later, we were there. I was so busy pulling bolts off the shelves that I forgot to take pictures! The first floor was apparel fabrics, cottons and craft supplies. Upstairs was all home décor fabrics...so much fabric. I was amazed with how much fabric they were able to pack in! There was also an entire section of Androsia Batik, fabric made on the island of Andros in the Bahamas! I had looked the company up before going to the Bahamas and had my sights set on some fun prints. I had a hard time picking a print and color, there were so many options but I went with a really fun pineapple print. I joked to Drew that I would make my own souvenirs with the fabric I bought. A lot of the bolts didn't have fabric content, just prices so I don't know exactly what they are, I just loved the print too much to pass them up.
The blue and purple/green ones are heavier, the colorful center piece is a knit, the hot pink batik cotton and the black/floral piece is a silky dream!
I didn't go shopping with any specific project in mind so I was literally choosing anything that spoke to me. Here are some of my favorites from Home Fabrics:
This piece is my favorite and I already have a project in mind for it:
Next we took the short walk to Commonwealth Fabrics. Again the amount of fabric was amazing! Since I already splurged a bit before, my mind was more focused in this shop. I also had to think about fitting everything in my suitcase! Nothing caught my eye until we went upstairs and I saw these two floral prints that I really loved. The one is such a soft knit it feels like it's been washed 100 times! I thought I was done until the sales woman told me the shop goes around the other side of the cutting counter as well. I only saw special occasion fabrics but there was more apparel fabrics hidden behind a wall and Androsia Fabrics all the way in back! I had to get another print. Here are my finds from Commonwealth:
Again, hot pink Batik cotton, brown floral is linen, pastel floral is knit and navy/orange print might be crepe de chine
It was such a good shopping trip, and I was happy to find Androsia Batik without needing to go to Andros. The top print is little fishes and the bottom are the pineapples.
What was really cool about this fabric trip was how "local" I felt. There were no tourists, since we weren't in the tourist area, but I felt very welcomed. In Commonwealth, one of the women asked if I was going home now to sew. She thought we were snow birds down for a few months! Both stores were so wonderful and I'm happy we were able to take a little detour from the resort and seek out these shops.