Wools and fabrics in Stockton-on-Tees

We went into Stockton this morning to do a few bits and pieces, including checking out the Enterprise Arcade and Cotton Cloth's shop in the Castlegate centre.

Samantha Grig has a yarn and knitting 'shop' in the new Enterprise Arcade.  The Arcade is the grey and white building with the fancy arched windows on the south side of the High Street, just to the right of the giant bauble decoration above.  She stocks a gorgeous selection of yarns, including many hand dyed and natural wools.  The only difficulty was what to choose! We bought two slightly different skeins of hand dyed blue/black/purple 4ply to knit socks, and a hand dyed yarn and a commercially spun multicoloured yarn to make hats.  All lovely wools - I can't wait to start knitting with them.  There was a beautiful lace yarn too, but I don't knit lace so I resisted.  Maybe another time. 

We also went round to check out Cotton Cloth Fabrics in the Castlegate centre.  It is easy to find, so long as you go into the centre next to Boots - we went the back way and it is a bit of a maze inside. We know Lizzie and Carl from the quilt shows and we have been talking about holding a hexagon patchwork event at the shop sometime (no dates fixed yet).  My idea was to make lots of hexagon rosettes.  I know the local Project Linus rep is interested in taking part, so this event could grow.  I thought we could see how many rosettes we could get made in one day.  I'll post more information about it here and on my website once we have finalised details.

Lizzie's mum Joan used to have a habadashery & craft stall in another part of the covered market in the 1970s and 80s, where I bought a lot of beads, braids, threads etc. for my early costuming projects.  The other shop I used to like was Hunters, a wool shop that was in Dovecot Street in the 1970s, near the junction with Prince Regent Street, and later had a shop next to the Odeon cinema opposite the Swallow Hotel.

 

Both shops are worth a visit if you are in Stockton.  We could do with a few more craft shops - there's another craft/fabrics shop next to Samatha's, and Boyes (just off the High Street) has a large craft/sewing section too.