I love Santa Cruz, CA. There is so much about that town that I like. I love Logo’s used book store. I love Harbor Cafe. I love all the old houses and the extra funky people. But, what I love most, and what I save up most of my craft money for, is Hart’s Fabrics.
The first time I went to Hart’s, I told my husband, “Look, this is going to get ugly. Money, and I mean lots of it, is going to be spent today. I just wanted to prepare you.” Being that my Husband is very understanding, and he has his own issues with buying computer books, he said he’d just sit in the car, read a computer book and let me have at it.
I get totally overwhelmed by Hart’s huge selection. Here are a couple tricks I use to decide which fabric to purchase for my stash. I visually pass over all of the fabric about 3 times. I try not to think too hard. I just let it soak in. By the 3 pass certain fabrics start calling to me. That’s when I start pulling the fabic bolts and setting them aside.
Another trick I do to supply my stash is to pick out a rainbow’s worth of fabric. By this I mean I make sure to pick out fabric in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, etc… And, don’t forget black, grey, white, salmon, purple,,,,, You get the idea. If I didn’t aim for a rainbows worth I’d come home with nothing but pink fabric.
These two fine ladies helped me out. I had a big mound of fabric which took them quite a while to get through. They where very cheerful at their task. And before long I was out the door with my huge bag, wondering if maybe I should have gotten more teal fabric.
Here is Hart’s info:
Hart’s Fabric, 1620 Seabright Ave., Santa Cruz, CA,
831-423-5434
Website: http://www.hartsfabric.com/index.html
Blog: http://blogs.hartsfabric.com/
I grew up in San Jose and frequently went to Santa Cruz. Even though I really can’t tan and just got more freckles!
I love fabric too but probably not as much as you do but I can definitely see why you would love this store.
that looks lovely…. sort of like BOLT in portland
I LOVE Santa Cruz! I had to move away from there this year and I miss it so much! Logos is one of my favorite stores. Thankfully I will be moving to San Jose next week. Its not to far from Santa Cruz
Yea!
Just curious. When you are buying fabric, for not a particular project, how much do you buy? A yard? Fat quarter? 2 yards?
What a wonderful way to pick fabric! I tend to just ‘live’ the rainbow when I go into my LQS. My husband is understanding about fabric purchases too, he even wanders around the store and finds fabrics he thinks I should get!
and don’t forget… this sunday is Hart’s Superbowl Sale!!! whoopie!!! i’ll so be there when the doors open!
I love harts I used to go in SF all the time. they had the best oilcloth…
I live in Santa Cruz, Hart’s can be extremely dangerous to one’s budget! It was even worse when they had their HUGE home decorating store. I’ve been shopping there for 20 years and still get “goosies” when I walk through the door!
Cheers
Hey!
One of our customers just altered us to your blog and this post and we just want to say THANKS! We heart our customers and we love tempting you with the whole rainbow of fabrics. Thanks to friendly folks like you, we are still in business during these difficult economic times. Once again, keep coming back and we’ll keep bringing in the coolest fabrics on the planet.
I grew up in Santa Cruz and frequented Hart’s with my mom. I have many fond memories of sitting at the pattern “bar” flipping through the pictures of Halloween costumes in the massive books.
Now, I live in Florida and I so miss this wonderful store!