Favourite Places-The Needlecraft Emporium and Fabric Cave at Crowle Home

If you are like me, you love to pop into your favourite (or local) opshop and see what fabric or crafty things they have on that bookshelf down towards the back of the store. Sometimes you strike it lucky finding some gorgeous buttons, a vintage bed sheet, a few balls of yarn, maybe a magazine you've never seen or a retro clothing pattern that you have just the right fabrics to make that up in at home. (Once I found a complete unused Gocco Printing Set for $15! SCORE) After happily forking over your money for said lucky crafty finds, you may find yourself skipping happily down the street daydreaming of the loveliness you now possess and all the possibilities of what you can make.............Or maybe that's just me.
BUT sometimes you leave empty handed. Not having found anything remotely interesting,

Today I will share with you my first trip to the AMAZING crafty opshop that is The Needlecraft Emporium and Fabric Cave, located at Crowle Home in North Ryde.
The Opshop is run by Achieve Australia and is called Vintage and Value Enterprises. The money raised by the opshop goes towards helping the people who live at Crowle Home and enriching their lives. Many of the volunteers are relatives of people who live or learn at Crowle House.
It is only open Mondays and Fridays from 9am till 2pm. They are also open one Sunday a month, but check the website for which one.
I went on a Monday, and only the needlecraft emporium and fabric cave were open but if you get to go on a Friday, they also have the second hand bookshop, plant shop and preloved clothing shop open as well.
The first room I visited was the Needlecraft Emporium. All I can say is WOW. The room is filled with everything a crafty person could ever want (and more).

 Drawers full of buttons.

 Shelves Filled with lace and braids..... Are we drooling yet?

 Boxes of patterns. All sorted into different categories.

A cool vest pattern. Love. But not my size :(

 Fat quarters and smaller sized pieces of quilting fabric.

 Liberty needlework kits.

 Amazing craft books. Quilting, Dressmaking, Embroidery, Beading, applique..... the list goes on.

 More buttons

 Embroidered Linens

As well as beads, wool, leather, larger quilting fabric pieces, felt and sooo much more. I found the prices to be  reasonable and I bought quite a few Ondori Quilting Books for $2 and $3 each.

The fabric cave is next door and is wall to wall, floor to ceiling fabric. Most of it is colour coded as you can see below with part of the green wall. 

 Blues

 Fancy fabrics and fabric on the roll. (Metallic and Beaded are in the Bins)

All the fabric is more than a metre in length, and priced between $3-$5 a metre. I bought some cottons for making skirts.
The range of fabric is amazing, There are cottons, satins, stretch and other fabrics as well.I don't think it is possible to walk out of there empty handed.
The staff are so friendly and generous and genuinely interested in what you have chosen and what you are going to make. I hope to take a few things back with me to show them what I made.

I honestly can't tell you how much I enjoyed visiting and the pictures do not do the place justice. I could have spent much longer there (and much more money too).

So I did my happy skip back to the car, and tried to concentrate on driving home, and not on all the lovely things I just bought.

Location:
76 Belmore Street, Ryde NSW
Entry via Porter Street off Junction Street, Ryde. Street parking is available.     
Opening hours:
Monday: 9am-2pm
Friday: 9am-2pm
1st Sunday of the month: 9am-Midday

Please note there are no eftpos facilities.