G Street Fabrics (and other DC resources)

**Edit** I keep adding more to this post, so come back before your trip to make sure you have to most up to date information!

I am always jealous of people who get so many comments that they do entire posts responding to them. Then Sandy in W left me a post-worthy comment, so yay! Thanks Sandy! In response to my post about my most recent G Street indulgence, she wrote:

I'm going to be in DC in a couple of weeks and I'm trying to decide if I should go to G Street Fabrics while I'm in the "neighborhood" (I'd have to take the metro out, which, being from Kansas (no metro's!!), always causes me to wonder if I'll get hopelessly lost, never to be seen again!) Do ya think it's worth the trip out there...or, are there other places I might want to check out instead? Here in Wichita we just have Joann's and Hancocks...NOT too thrilling. A trip out to G Street would take a chunk of my precious DC time, so I don't want to do it unless it offers more thrills and chills than J's and H'!

I get this question a fair amount, and it's a little difficult to answer. I love having G Street as a resource, and I double love their free monthly Fashion Sewing Club meetings (missed the one for this month because I was touring the White House, which I will blog about eventually on my travel blog). But it *is* pricey and, unfortunately, difficult to reach.

The original G Street was presumably located on G Street in downtown DC, but that location is long gone. They currently have four suburban locations, three in Virginia and one in Maryland. The location I go to is the Falls Church Virginia location at Seven Corners. I can head out to the 'burbs for the day to go to the nice, cheap grocery store (Shoppers Food Warehouse), the Target, the TJ Maxx, the DSW, the Trader Joe's, and all the other big boxes and chains we so love to abhor. Now that I have given up my car, I won't be going there too often! (DC has a for-profit car-sharing program that I will eventually break down and join.)

The Virginia locations are not remotely metro accessible, and the Maryland location is quite metro accessible, assuming you have a lot of time to spend on the metro. The White Flint metro station on the Red line is pretty close--less than half a mile--and a straight shot to the G Street at 11854 Rockville Pike. Exit the station at the main entrance and make a right turn to put yourself at the intersection of Rockville Pike; you'll see a McDonald's catty-corner to where you are. That's the main drag. Make another right on Rockville Pike and cross the street at the first light you get to. The G Street is in the shopping center in front of you on the far right corner; the shopping center also has a Toys'r'Us and a Filene's Basement so if you see them you're in the right place. Here's a map of the area.

I've also taken the White Flint station to Accents Beads, a visit I highly recommend combining with a trip to the Rockville G Street if you enjoy beads or jewelrymaking. The link above gives good directions for how to get there from the station.

The rub is that from downtown DC (Metro Center/Gallery Place-ish), you're looking at about a 40 minute metro ride to White Flint--it's quite a distance as you can see on the metro map. Give another 10 minutes or so to walk to the store and you're looking at round trip travel time of 1:45 to 2 hours, depending on metro wait times. The Red line has been under construction every weekend for months now with no end in sight, which means long waits of around 20 minutes between trains.

Bottom line: If your time is really limited (just a few hours), it might not be worth it. If you have a free afternoon, it could be worth it.

It is a completely different experience than Joann or Hancock, for sure--lots more thrills and fewer chills (at least I get a cold shiver down my spine when I walk among all those bolts of nothing but polyester). There is no sickly-sweet smell of craft store. In fact, there are no crafts. It's just all fabric, all sewing, all the time. The locations are all quite large and have both apparel and home dec sections. In apparel you can find everything from knits to silk brocades to $200/yd bridal lace to men's wool suitings to every kind of faux fur to...the list is endless. Pretty much any kind of apparel fabric you want is there somewhere. I don't do home dec and have only been through the section a few times, but it seems similarly comprehensive.

All this quality comes at a price, of course. $12/yd is the cheap end, and it goes up from there. Way up.

However, there is a saving grace: the $2.97/yd table. I purchase pretty much exclusively from the $2.97/yd table. I'm not really sure how they decide what goes out for that price, because I once saw something I'd bought from the $2.97 table back out in the regular racks at $8/yd a couple of weeks later. A lot of it is crap, or perhaps I should be more charitable and say "stuff that doesn't interest me." LOTS of tissue-weight and fine mesh knits and just such randomness. But there is a lot to choose from and rare is the day I find nothing. Too rare, certainly, based on the size of my stash!


There is a similar table in home dec, I think it's $3.97 or $5.97 or something. I've looked a few times to see if there's anything I'd like for a jacket, but none of it has been to my taste. Others really like it though.



The notions section is really comprehensive. Two things I stock up on are zippers and double faced satin ribbon. The zips are "house brand" and come on just a little hang tag instead of more packaging than it takes to transport a carton of eggs. The overpackaging of zippers really bothers me. They're a little cheaper than what you get at Joann and Hancock and there are many more colors and lengths to choose from in both regular and invisible. Unfortunately, not too many metal zippers at this point even though the exposed metal zip is coming into fashion. The ribbon is Swiss, double faced, great quality, lots of colors and *cheaper* than awful Offray. It's in little cardboard box dispensers and sells by the yard. Don't breeze through the notions section, there's a lot of good stuff in there. They have fabulous buttons but the prices are too painful for me to bear.

Bottom line: (1) lots of good stuff to touch and squeeze and love and hold, (2) it's more expensive than the internet for the most part, (3) except for the $2.97/yd table, (4) don't miss the notions. Also, check out their class schedule. They have lots of one day classes on the weekends, and there might be something you're interested in while you're here.

The photos are projects made from the $2.97 table. The post was too boring without pictures!

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As an alternative, if you're in the heart of DC and don't have the time to go out to G Street, you can visit Exquisite Fabrics. It's a "to the trade" kind of place, so most of the fabric is high end. Within the past year they've started catering a little more to the home sewist with special $5-10/yd tables. It's a small shop but they make the most of their space and the inventory is certainly a cut (or three) above what you'd find at a Hancock or Joann.

Exquisite has moved to a new location in Georgetown in a little mall called The Shops at Georgetown. You can reach Georgetown via the Circulator bus ($1 each way and a pleasant ride) or any #30 buses. If you are comfortable with traffic circles and maps, you can also walk down Pennsylvania from the Foggy Bottom station (Blue/Orange) and if you're *really* comfortable with maps you can walk down from DuPont Circle (Red). Although the new location is much less convenient than their old metro accessible K Street location, they have added Saturday hours. They are now open Monday-Saturday, 11 am to 7 pm. While in Georgetown you can do some snoop shopping at high end boutiques.

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If you do yarn crafts, you should pay a visit to Stitch DC. At this point they have three locations--Capitol Hill/Eastern Market, Georgetown, and Chevy Chase, Maryland. I've only been to the Capitol Hill location. It's accessible from the Eastern Market metro station, a bit of a walk down 8th St SE but there are lots of cute little shops and restaurants to pass on the way (it's nearly at the end of the row). The store is three rooms and just brimming with gorgeous yarns. I took my mom there (she crochets) and we had a lot of fun fondling all the textiles.

If you go on the weekend, you can also take a stroll through Eastern Market--currently in a mishmash of temporary buildings because there was a terrible fire last year that devastated the century old market building--and pick up some produce, baked goods, butcher products, and lots of knick knacks, flea market picks, and genuine antiques. It's a great way to spend a couple of hours. In fact, this is kind of making me want to go there today!

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The District is working to become a fashion destination. To that end, the Greater Washington Fashion Chamber of Commerce and the DC Department of Parks and Recreation sponsor the DC Threads Sewing Lounge on the second Saturday of the month. You bring the supplies, they provide the machines and a simple project if you need some inspiration. I haven't made it to this because it conflicts with Fashion Sewing Club and seems aimed at the beginning sewist, but this could be a good place to start if you're wanting to get into sewing. Information is on their website.