Fabric shopping in Michigan- Fabrications and Habermans

A couple weeks ago when my friends I attended The Sewcial in Novi, Michigan we had the opportunity to stop and shop at 2 very wonderful fabric stores. Over the past several years I have steadily moved my fabric shopping to online retailers. Having the opportunity to shop at 2 wonderful garment fabric stores was a real treat. Just being able to touch the fabric and feel the drape and lay swatches on it match colors is something that I miss doing on a regular basis.

Liz H, Wendy G and Myself! Happy to be going fabric shopping!

The first shop was Fabrications in Richland, MI. This is a wonderful family owned shop that has a wonderfully curated selection of garment fabric and yarns. Janet and Dick Dapson are a wonderful couple. Prior to this visit to their shop outside of Kalamazoo I had only shopped from their booths at expo's.

Fabrications shop. Beautiful rayons, cottons, cotton shirtings, a wall of silks and racks of every kind of woolen including fabulous Ibex washable merino wools!

Since they were basically on the way to and from The Sewcial retreat we decided to stop on Thursday afternoon on our way AND we made a stop on the return drive to Chicago. We all decided that we were all having non-buyers remorse and that there were still fabrics left in Fabrications that just had to come home with us! LOL!!

Top is a view of the front of the classroom, behind me are several big ironing stations. Really a lovely place to book a retreat! The bottom photos show the main shop cutting table and Janet and just a portion of all the lovely yarns! 

In addition to the wonderful fabric, at amazing prices, there is a grand selection of yarns and a very large teaching space. Having a sewing retreat at their place would be wonderful. It is HUGE, well lit, massive cutting tables as well as quite a few work tables for sewing.


The second shopping experience was friday afternoon of The Sewcial included a Sip and Shop trip to Habermans in Royal Oak, MI We had a bus 3/4 full of eager shoppers! Haberman's really treated us quite well. In their open classroom space there was a lunch buffet set-up along with wine, sparkling grape juice and water.

Sip and Shop and eat and have fun and buy lots of beautiful fabric event!

We started off our visit with a tour of the shop. Half the group was with the owner, she is a third generation owner of the shop and took us on a tour and filled us in on the history of both Haberman's as a company as well as the shop itself. They have been in business since 1958 and you can read about their history here. The current store used to be an old lumberyard and they had it remodeled and refurbished to fit their needs.

We toured the shop in 2 groups. Janet Pray and Linda Lee both joined us on this trip and made themselves available for any questions we had while shopping.

 It is a delight to the eyes to walk around and take it all in! The ceilings are soaring and in places they had dropped ceilings put in to recreate the look of rooms. There is a bridal are that has the most sumptuous fabrics, a Royal room that I happened to fall in love with, a designer brocade wall, silk wall, woolens, cottons and beautiful trims and buttons.

Many of the areas were set up with mannequins that either had completed dresses on them or artfully draped fabric on them. It was all very inspiring.

The bridal room was just full of sumptuous white and ivory fabrics, laces, tulle of every kind, horsehair braid and so much more. There was a lovely chandelier hanging over the cutting table in the bridal room. The set-up was so lovely and would make any bride feel special to be choosing fabrics for her wedding dress!

One of the things that really make this shop stand out are the details. There are these wonderful quotes on the walls, collections of vintage findings and on most of the walls the fabrics are displayed in the colors of the rainbow. It just creates this wonderful flow and feeling of beauty.

Brocade wall on top and the silk wall on bottom. The quotes that are on the walls really bring the shopping experience to a whole new level!

Top is front wall of rayons and polyesters and the bottom is the woolens, cottons shirtings and knits of all kinds.

We really had a lot of fun and I came home with several new pieces to add to my own wonderfully curated selection of fabrics!

The bus ride was full of expectation as we made the 30 min ride to Habermans from the expo center in Novi. On the way back the driver had to open up the luggage compartments for us to store all our lovely purchases!
On the way back our heads were filled with all the lovely ideas that we had floating around. The possibilities that these lovely purchases represent are just wonderful. Wendy's purchases on the top right are always a bit more subdued in color palette (and always look so much neater) when compared to my riotous pile of fabrics!

If you are ever in Michigan you really should make a stop at both of these shops! As we all know, too many fabric shops are closing up their doors, let's keep these guys in business Fabrications and Habermans.

We are never ones to forgo the opportunity for a selfie! Here we are with the shop owner. She must have been smiling ear to ear after our busload left! and of course who can resist the charm of  a beautiful boa!!

Happy Fabric Shopping!!