Ottawa Fabric Secrets – Where are all the good fabrics?

Does Ottawa Have Good Fabric Stores?

If you’ve lived in the National Capital Region as an avid crafter, seamstress, or newborn photographer, you soon realized that finding good selection of fabric in Ottawa is nearly impossible. That means a lot of us are no longer shopping local and taking to the world wide web for fabulous finds. Now especially with the plummeting dollar these days, it’s even more of a challenge to find awesome fabrics for all your crafting needs that don’t cost you an arm and a leg. What are the Ottawa fabric secrets!?

Since I frequent local fabric stores on a weekly basis looking for gorgeous finds for my newborn photography, whether for my beanbag backdrops or for creating custom outfits and accessories, I have decided to take it upon myself to go to all of the local stores in the Ottawa area that I can find, and offer a comprehensive review of each, let you know which have specialities, and create some sort of directory.
I am very much a big believer of the #shoplocal #shopsmall mentality so what better way to keep local businesses thriving all while sharing the Ottawa fabric secrets you’ve been dying to learn!

For the time being, I am going to be frequenting FABRIC stores, whose main offering is fabric rather than yarn/weaving/other specialities. Starting with small local businesses, next with not-so-small canadian businesses, and then onto the rest. It’s time we TAKE BACK THE OTTAWA FABRIC INDUSTRY and give the local shops a good reason to keep better stock of what we actually want! (aka buy their products!) State your wants and needs in the comments and I will share with the local store owners I frequent.

I will be updating this post as I visit the stores, and posting a new article for each company, so keep a bookmark somewhere or comment below and I will update you each time a new listing is added.

Ottawa Fabric Stores

Where I’ve been:

• Fabrications (Wellington West, Ottawa)
• C&M Textiles Inc. (Emerald Plaza, Ottawa) [their bridal and upholstery sections are huge!]
• Paquette Textiles (boul Fournier, Gatineau) [their clearance section is amazing!]
• Fabricville (boul Maloney, Gatineau)
• Fabricland (pretty much all of them in Ottawa!)
• Ecoequitable Inc. (MacArthur, Ottawa) [recycled and vintage options? yes please!]

On my to-go-next list:

• Darrell Thomas Textiles (Mill Street, Almonte) [the haute couture selection looks fabulous!]
• Rockland Textiles (Kaladar Ave, Ottawa) [looks like an upholster’s dream!]
• SEW for It (Moodie Drive, Ottawa) [their cotton floral selection looks ahhmazing!]
• And any others you’d like to suggest for me.

Ottawa Fabric Secrets

One of the best kept secrets for AWESOME fabric finds in the city is thrift shops. I’m not kidding. I have found some of the most amazing fabric gold mines in local shops like Value Village, Salvation Army, and St Vincent de Paul stores. People donate unused yardage that is too small for any standard garment sewing project, but that a crafter or upcycler would LOVE. This is also a great place to pick up old oversized garments (ei. sweaters or dresses) for smaller crafts like baby outfits or quilting. I’ve scored some of my most unique and soft fabrics from there.

Recognize this little newborn romper? It was made from a cashmere sweater, yes I said CASHMERE sweater, that I was able to get my hands on for UNDER TEN DOLLARS. WIN!

Another great fabric secret, depending on your project, is Kijiji or Facebook Marketplace. While you may have to sift through some serious junk, there are always stellar ads popping up with great finds! Sometimes there are even ‘free-to-take-all’ listings.

Have any other suggestions? I’d love to hear them in the comments below.