Over the last decade or so, a decline in small speciality shops has seen a surge in the supermarket…er.. market. In my small town we now have a Morrisons, tiny Tesco, giant Tesco, giant Asda, Iceland AND an Iceland Warehouse, an M&S Foodhall, a Lidl and TWO Aldis.
It will come as no surprise that we don’t have a fabric shop. Not even an upholstery one or a Dunelm. Or a wool shop. The closest thing to a craft shop that we have, is The Works.
And this is true of many towns now.
A few years ago Aldi advertised a sewing week, complete with fat quarters, and the country went nuts. We heard about queues before the shop opened, people tossing every fat quarter pack in there into their trolley depriving anyone else of the chance, there were Aldi fat quarters on eBay for three times their value, and hunting for left over packs to post to people on the other side of the UK who didn’t manage to get there fast enough. It was a while, perhaps another year before Aldi did a sewing week again, but they obviously caught on because sewing and crafts is now a regular staple in the centre aisles.
It’s gotten to the point where in UK Quilters United, we’ve had to put a stop to the (generally relentless) ‘Look what I got in Aldi’ posts. And it’s not because we don’t like Aldi! There’s a few reasons really why we might ask you to put your purchase post in our Social group instead , and hopefully this will explain to you why.
We LOVE your makes; show us ALL the things you make with your Aldi fabric. Those are brilliant.
It really is the actual ‘Look what I got in Aldi’ posts that are a pain. A lot of it IS how relentless those posts are, to the point of having the wall swimming with them. We love the enthusiasm but it can get to the point where it’s drowning out all the other quilty posts and pushing them down the wall before they can be seen and appreciated. So it’s the ‘Look what I bought’ posts we like to avoid, rather than ‘Look what I made’ posts, which I’m sure you can appreciate is a different story.
As you may have noticed, the quality of Aldi fabrics tends not to be great. Some ARE great, some are so-so and some are frankly terrible. It has to be said that using them in a quilt may not get you the results that you desire, and we hate to see people defeated because the quilt they put so much effort into isn’t what they expected because of poor fabrics, when we know they could have gone to a quilt shop and gotten something so much better. That said, if Aldi is what you can afford, or you really like the designs then go for it; we’re not saying you have to use the most expensive cotton without fail to quilt, you can make a quilt out of an old pair of polyester curtains if you want! A good rule of thumb if you aren’t using quilters cotton though, is to wash it first. You don’t want to put all the work in and then find out after the first wash that it’s shrunk horribly, or the colours have run, and a prewash at the same temperature you’ll wash the quilt at, will save you a lot of grief later.
The by far most important issue with Aldi fabrics though is how it impacts on local quilt shops. Whether it’s Aldi, The Range, Hobbycraft or Ikea, a sale there means a quilt shop loses a sale. If we don’t support our quilt shops then the already obvious decline will only carry on until there are none left. Whether you buy through Facebook or eBay, a website or in a shop, at a show or a festival, those are people trying to keep their shops afloat in a falling economy.
As a group, as a community, what we want more than anything is to support Local Quilt Shops. To keep quilting a thriving hobby for many more years to come.
So next time you need some fabric for a project, instead of waiting for Aldi, don’t forget to take a trip round the internet and see what UK quilt shops have to offer instead.
*Disclaimer. Yes I do have some Aldi fabric, here’s a bag pattern I tested.
Header quilt by Alison Pease, other makes tagged underneath 🙂 Thanks guys!
Great blog Julia x