Guangzhou China Fabric Markets

Almost a year ago I went to Hong Kong and had the chance to visit Sham Shui Po Fabric Market. I was thrilled to score some good quality fabrics and those rare ones that I couldn’t find it back in Malaysia. Do read about my experience here if you haven’t.

Ever since that trip,I’ve been waiting for the right time to rope in my crafter friends on  a fabric shopping spree. Long story short, Maizura, Liza and I finally decided that we should go to Guangzhou China as we heard ‘this is the real deal’ ‘the mother of all fabric markets’. Upon approval from our husbands (yay!) we proceed to book our flight tickets and waited anxiously for the day to come.

We arrived Baiyun International Airport, Guangzhou on 30th April 2014  in the morning.

The first fabric market we went was the HighSun String & Cloth Market (also known as HighSun Fabric Market). We took taxi to the market as it was more convenient that way. Tip #1 , for non mandarin speaking tourist like us , we came prepared printed the mandarin name and showed to the taxi driver. He understood right away and took us there, about couple minutes drive only from our hotel .

In front of the store. Yes all smiley and super excited 🙂

This Aunty shop carries variety of linen materials and she’s super nice too! We like her a lot that we came back again with more order.

Liza felt all giddy here hahaha …honestly, we are all spoilt with tons of  fabric choices.

Haggling is a must here! That’s my “gimme good price aunty..i buy many many”  pfft hahaha

Some that I bought on that day..

We stayed in Highsun until close to 6pm. Then we headed back to hotel as all of us suddenly felt our stomach growling- literally shop till we drop!

Day two –  Welcome to Zhongda Fabric Market (中大瑞纺布匹市场 ).  We arrived early morning around 9am and yerp! this time with our luggage bags. Pretty ambitious I’ll say. We took translator this time round as we’re not that confident when it comes to dealing with whole sellers.(or so we thought hmmm)

Inside Zhongda.

As expected there were swatches on each shops. Unfortunately due to Labor day many shops were closed ..even if there are shops that operates, they are unable to get fabrics as warehouses are closed as well. However they suggested we placed our orders and swing by tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, as by then warehouses are open.To be honest we were rather skeptical about the arrangement , firstly our flights back is tomorrow night and secondly we rather not take the risk of losing our deposit money if we failed to picked up/they failed to deliver.

Anyhow we didn’t came back empty handed. Liza managed to grab few meters on the spot from a shop that happen to kept some fabric sample. As for the rest of us, we went for sewing accessories like rick racks, buttons, lace, knit elastic band which was pretty awesome too!

On Day three – Well, we went back to HighSun for the same reason – another round of fabric freezy..haha just an excuse to finish up our yuans, which I might add was a good choice we make , as we got familiar and know which shops has yummy fabrics selections. We scored relatively good %  too if I may say ..so hurrah!

Ok here are some tips I gather :

1. Never ever ever Ever accept the first price offer.

2. Try to walk around first before you start buying .

2. Make sure what you bargain is what you really really want. It’s just not nice if you bargain and not interested to buy. So be nice to the seller too ya.

3. If the price offer is not right,  tryyyy walking away from the seller (tactics hehe)..and chances are sometimes they will call you back and give you your last offer price. But sometimes, they might just ignored you as they find your offer price too low ..haha in that case, if you really2 like it just buy lah!

4.Chinese beliefs first customer in the morning should bring “ong” (luck) for their business. We happened to come early that day. So as a first buyer they gave quite a good price. I even managed to get few meters free as well from the ‘many-many’ meters I bought from this seller., I believe she kinda like me hahaha ..My friends can attest to that 🙂

5. Few basic English to communicate “how much”(show the calculator), “buy many-many?”, “ok not ok?”

 

To conclude  I even made this table below as a comparison between HighSun vs Zhongda Fabric Markets.

FABRIC MARKETS	Highsun (Haiyin) Fabrics Market海印布匹市场	Zhongda Fabric Market(中大瑞纺布匹市场 — Zhongda Rui Fang Bu Pi Shichang)
Fabrics	almost any kinds of fabrics can be found here, for curtains, bedsheets, silk materials, chiffon and cotton.	you’ll be overwhelmed with the choices they have, you have to refer to their fabric swatches inside/outside their shops.
The place	it is ideal for small quantity fabric purchases (between 2-10 meters) and for tailor making dresses.	it mostly targeted for whole sellers, selling wide varieties of fabrics and taking up order until 1000 meters!
Opening Hours	9.30am – 6pm	8.30am – 6pm/7pm
Minimun Purchase	you can buy small quantities about one meter of fabric	Depending on each shop, some prefer you to buy in bulk. However, you can inquire them if you can buy fabrics as sample abt 5-10 meters, sometimes they do take up. Try asking
Do I have to wait for my fabric order?	Normally they have their stocks within reach, so you can get your fabrics order right on the spot.	Most of the time,Yes you do have to wait because their warehouse is elsewhere so they need to make contact for your order. some i read takes an hour or so, but for us they requested a day/ two days of delivery
Location/Address	沿江东路429 号海印大厦 海印布艺城1-4/F, Haiyin Building, 429 Yanjiang Dong Lu, GUANGZHOU Guangzhou	Zhongda Fabric Market 海珠区新港西路中大国际轻纺城 Xingang Xi LuChina Fabrics and Accessories Center (广州国际轻纺城 — Guangzhou guo ji qing fang cheng）
How to get there?	We didn’t take the metro, we took taxi , it was about 15 minute drive there.	If by metro station > stop at Sun Yat Sen University, Exit D. Walk straight 200 meters after the exit and turn right on Ruikang Road. Then you will find fabric markets all over that street.By taxi from our Sino Trade Center hotel, took us about 20 minutes. The fare was about 20yuan.

Other good write up I look up before the trip was from these readers:

Libertad

Michele Ng part 1 | part 2

Our translator name was Carrie, from ChinaFabrix . She came to our hotel and we all went together to Zhongda.

In case you’re wondering, we stayed at Sino Trade Centre Hotel which we highly recommended. Great location, easy public transport access, there’s 7-11 and Circle K , a bakery shop and if you’re a muslim there’s few blocks away a halal restaurant. In the morning there’s a flea market just behind the hotel and there’s a yummy yogurt seller nearby too.

All in all, based on our business needs & the time we have in Guangzhou we preferred HighSun Fabric Market. That being said given the chance we would definitely like to come again to Zhongda Fabric Market and maybe this time we might place our orders 😉

I personally hope this entry inspired you readers to hop on that plane and explore this city!

Other places we went during this trip was One Link Plaza (selling lotsa toys, gifts and household items), Beijing Lu (fashion street) and One Link Walk (just to checkout Zara Home !).

The End.

 

 

Hello 2014

Inspired from Beci Orpin “Find & Keep” book ,I got myself busy making this “Hello” cross stitch at this Iphone5 casing.

Here is my version >>

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Fabric Market : Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong

Four days ago I was in Hong Kong for a family holiday. The highlight of the trip for me has got to be my shopping trip to Sham Shui Po (SSP), Hong Kong largest fabrics & DIY supplies. If I may quote from Hey Kumo blog “Indeed, the Fabric Street in Hong Kong is something to behold. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of textile shops in the area, with their samples hung out for your picking.”  Every crafter dream to be to in this side of  ‘paradise‘.

I went to SSP with a dear friend sans our husbands, just us with our babies  in our boba babycarrier – (I swear this carrier is very comfortable for a long walkabout!)  Since it was our last day in HK and we had to check-out by 12pm, so husbands stayed back to do some packing while us ladies head to fabric shopping. No way I’m gonna miss going to this much talk about fabric market while I’m in Hong Kong.

I am so blessed Mukhriz is an easy baby. He slept the moment I step into MTR and all the while during mommy-going-oooo-aaa-over-fabrics , he slept soundly. Alhamdulillah.

Alrighty – brace yourself diyer & fabrics lovers as I will present to you one of largest fabric town I have been to- Sham Shui Po.

Our Regal Kowloon Hotel (where we stayed for three nights) situated nearby Tsim Sha Shui MTR and it took us about 3 minutes walk. We took the Tsuen Wan Line and head to Sham Shui Po MTR ( very important to get to the right exit – take exit A2) .

By 9 am we arrived SSP. *A tip I read in blogsphere it is better to go on a weekday because on Saturday & Sunday most shops are closed. I’m glad we decided to go on a Monday morning. Traffic was good and weather was kind too 🙂 . Since we were early, we roamed around Yu Chaun Street where we saw ribbons, trims & beads shops. Choices choices choices!

Before we began to overspent on tons of beautiful ribbons & trims we quickly walk away (of course with our loots!)  from the shop (heavy heartily)  to locate Ki Lung Street and we found it! It was just a row behind the first lane from where we got off from the MTR exit.

Sellers are getting ready to take out their stacks of fabrics. It’s nice to be there early.

Weee…blardly excited ! Tee Hee

Words could not described how stoked I was to finally arrived and experienced the awesomeness of the SSP fabrics town. My hands kept touching every fabrics I saw to get the feel – there’s jersey knits, cottons, lace, polyester, silk every types of fabrics one could imagine.

Samples of fabrics are displayed for customers to choose. However, most of it are sold as wholesale. I took couple of samples, didn’t asked further as I know I will have to wait a day or two before getting them so I head to available ones on Ki Lung Street.

I have a thing with scissors. I love to collect them whenever I travel abroad. This uncle was seating in this cute corner shop selling nothing but scissors. He didn’t talk much but understood what I was looking for. I picked a size 10 scissors and he helped out to sharpen it and let me test to snip on scraps. He sure is an expert.

Three hours passed by very quickly when we’re having too much fun picking our materials to your heart contents. I did get discounts from this one auntie (didnt get to snap her photo) since we bought A LOT from her. She has the nicest collections too I must say. *All shops sells in yards , some put up a minimum of 5yards , some at 3 yards and certain doesn’t mind at all. Try to negotiate and ask nicely 🙂

I wish we brought our roller luggage but what to do, it was our last day in HK and hubster need to use it to pack our stuff. My shoulders were overload with yards & yards of fabby furthermore with a sleeping baby it was quite unbearable to be standing and walking . No doubt both of us were exhausted but we were happy with our purchases.

Price wise I would say very afforable even compared to Ringgits. Definitely a must go for every crafter & sewist …you won’t regret it.

Many thanks to HeyKumo blog, Katharine Yeung and TravellersYarn for their informative stories about sham shui po fabric market. Other related blogs you can read here, here , here, here and here.

And finally , here are stuff I bought – yards of cottons, oil cloth, knits, sequins, beads, ribbons and leather . Not in pictures are some ribbons, rick racks and lace. All worth the walk & sweat to SSP!

I have been to Chinatown Bangkok (blogged here) but nothing beats Sham Shui Po market. Definitely coming back for sure! Who’s with me? 😉

The white box with dates

I dont’t know about you but I am someone who need to have a beautiful calendar (with white box in each dates) and a blank notepad to start off my new year.

Good thing I bought Mollie Makes magazine Dec 2012 issue and got myself not only a pretty wall calendar but also full of inspirational quotes for crafter like me. Win!

Here is another beautiful calendar bought at my favourite stationary store. The design & illustration is from our local talented artist Cheri Loh. I’m a big fan for our local talented designer/crafter/artist so of course I buy ’em (whenever I can afford it lah hee). I already knew where to hang it up …at my kitchen. The left photo is a free poster from Frankie magazine,drawing by Amy Blackwell.

Besides calendar, I love getting a new diary to begin my new year.For the past three years I have made three personalize diary for myself. It has to be small size notepad,easy for me to carry around in my handbag and most importantly a blank paper type.I l just fancy the possibilties to doodles and scribbles anything important to me in whichever way I desired not restricted with lines.

This year I wrap up my diary with my favourite fabric, which I bought it during my travel to Melbourne.

Yes as u can see I’m not quite over with the garland theme. What’s not to like the happy garland pattern..kinda cheer up my mood just looking at it.

What about you? Do you fancy good looking calendar & diary like myself? I’d love to hear them. Until then, have an enjoyable day with your love ones.

P.S I Love DIY

My bedroom curtain. Love!

Giving a new look to my old shoes with my self made shoe clips. Defo making more of it!

And finally,I get around to paint those collection of empty bottles into something useful. Reuse recycle 😉

Ramadhan is just around the corner, here’s wishing to all my muslim reader “Happy Fasting!” . I’m happiest on Friday, can’t wait to attempt my personal projects. Have a great day peeps!