20 January 2024, 11am to 3pm
Kick start your New Year sewing with a stash refresh! Bring along any fabric, sewing patterns and haberdashery that aren’t inspiring you and exchange for things you love. This destash event is a great opportunity to find the perfect resources for your next project, in a way that saves the planet (and your wallet!). Everybody is welcome to join in the swapping fun and sewing socalising. We had a blast at the 2023 fabric swap. This year I’m excited to be sharing the fun with Yvette from Stash Hub and the London Stitchers Meet Up.
When and Where
Join us for the London Fabric Destash Swap on Saturday 20 January, 11am to 3pm.
Craft Central, 397-411 Westferry Road, London, E14 3AE
Close to Island Garden DLR station, on the D7 and 277 bus route (from Hackney, Mile End and Canary Wharf stations)
Fully accessible venue, light and airy with plenty of space and quiet zones to take time out.
Hosts
This sewing event is organised by Olive Road London and Stash Hub. Olive Road London is a vintage fabric shop that is on a mission to save fabric from landfill. Stash Hub is a popular sewing organiser app with a mission to help you organise your sewing supplies and fall back in love with your stash. We have teamed up to host this sewing swap so you can rehome your unloved sewing supplies and sustainably source some new gems.
In collaboration with the London Stitchers Meetup – a group of makers who meet up and chat each month at different venues around London. Meet old friends and make new ones. There are plenty of places to sit, so bring along some hand sewing and spend the day with us.
How it works
Buy a ticket on Eventbrite for £4 per person (or £3 Earlybird before 7th January). This includes a donation to Craft Central – a registered charity who are lending us their beautiful gallery.
One the day just bring what you want you don’t need, take what you do need
Place your donated items on the relevant tables, take what you want (we are not issuing tokens to make it easier and quicker to swap but please only take what you think you will use).
The longer you spend at the destash swap the more choice of items you will see coming in, so keep your eyes peeled!
We are not doing a drop off hour like some swap events. Spend a few hours in this beautiful Victorian Forge and enjoy some goodies from the pop up Japanese cafe, Gu Choki Pan. Meet new people and chat about sewing, crafting and knitting. There is a lovely walk along the Thames if you prefer to go and come back later.
What to bring
- Swap Fabric of all types – please label with width, length and fibre content if known.
- Sewing magazines and patterns
- Haberdashey, knitting yarn and embroidery threads
- Don’t forget to bring a bag to carry home your new stash – we are not able to provide bags.
- Please bring your empty cotton reels, they will be reused for workshops.
Tables will be arranged in the Craft Central gallery and labelled with the following categories:
- Fabric remnants under 50cm / Fat Quarters and Quilting Precuts
- Fabric remnants under 1m
- Fabric lengths 1 to 1.9m
- Fabric lengths 2-2.9m
- Fabric lengths over 3m
- Sewing patterns (please label if cut and to what size or uncut)
- Sewing magazines
- Sewing threads, embroidery threads, darning threads
- Notions (e.g. zips, buttons, labels)
- Ribbons, trims, bias bindings
- Tools
- Knitting yarn
Please DO NOT bring clothes to swap, this is a fabric and haberdashery swap only.
Left Over Fabric and Haberdashery
Any items left over will be donated to charity. Larger fabric pieces suitible for dressmaking will be used for weekly sewing session run by Mel at the Guildford Refugee Centre. Quilting fabric will be collected for the patchwork classes at the Liase Women’s Centre in Woking. Smaller items and haberdashery will be donated to The Big C craft warehouse in Wymondham, Norfolk.
If you run a community event that requires fabric or haberdashery, please get in touch via sarah@oliveroad.london to find out about collecting left over fabric. It must be collected in person on Sunday 21 January as we don’t have any storage.
About Olive Road London
Olive Road London, an independent vintage fabric shop founded and run by me, Sarah Richards. Olive Road London is named after the street my Grandparents lived on for 60 years, a small house with many stories to tell. I am passionate about reusing these beautiful fabrics and saving them from adding to the textile waste issue. I am organising this fabric swap to help sewists swap fabrics they no longer want for fabrics they do. A fabric stash is a lovely thing to own but only if it contains fabric you will end up using. Fabric is woven and knitted for us to make into something that we are going to love or give as a gift for someone else to love.
About Stash Hub
Stash Hub is a sewing organiser app for iOS and Android created by husband-and-wife duo Doug (talented software developer) and Yvette (keen dressmaker and member of the sewing community). Stash Hub has been a joint project from the beginning, and we are both so proud of the helpful and user-friendly app we have created. Sewists can use Stash Hub to catalogue fabrics, store patterns, plan projects and even view their own sewing stats! We have teamed up with Sarah to help organise this event because we know that sewing stashes can become overwhelming and we wanted to help provide a fun opportunity for sewists to pass on their unwanted supplies to people who will use them.
Pop Up Cafe
Gu Choki Pan is hosting a cafe at the destash swap. A Japanese bakery specialising in Japanese sough dough breads and sweet baked goods. Along with coffee, tea and delicious matcha lattes. Enjoy a delicious sweet treat whilst you wait for more items to arrive at the swap.
Accessibility
Craft Central is a large spacious building. It is fully accessible on the ground floor where the event is held. We are expecting the event to be busy and it can get crowded by the tables but there is lots of space around the building to take time out. There may be a queue at the start of the event but it will get quieter towards the end around 2pm.
More Info
Please see our FAQs on the Eventbrite page. If this doesn’t answer your questions then please get in touch via sarah@oliveroad.london. We will email ticket holders with more information nearer the time on how it works, what to swap and how to get there.
Videos and photos are from the swap in 2023, which was a great success. Everyone stayed for a few hours, chatted about sewing over coffee and cake. It was a social event as much as it was a fabric swap. We hope you can make it for our second swap event.
Please note, we take no responsibility for items donated and swapped. Please bring items you are happy to swap and emotionally ready to let go of. You may not find items of the same quality as the ones you bring. Once you have donated an item, you will not be able to change your mind. Olive Road London Ltd. and Stash Hub accepts no liability for any claim or loss resulting from any transaction taking place at the swapping event or for personal property brought into Craft Central and surrounding areas. All items remaining after the event will be donated to charity. Proceeds from the ticket sales will be used for marketing and running costs of the event. All profits will be donated to Craft Central (a registered charity) who are letting us use their beautiful gallery to host the event.