Great Value Crafting

I’ve long enjoyed working on various craft projects and am always looking for good value stockists of craft materials.

A small, fairly local, craft shop is a reasonable source for certain materials that I buy, but choice can be limited and prices sometimes rather high. At the other end of the scale, I’m not a fan of Hobbycraft with its impersonal warehouse set-up, which still doesn’t result in low prices.

So despite my erstwhile reluctance to buy products online, I recently found myself trawling the Internet in the hope of finding some reasonably priced blank coasters for cross stitch, in addition to other useful materials. My research was greatly rewarded.

I’ve discovered a great company called Willow Fabrics www.willowfabrics.com that supplies a range of fabrics, threads, wool and needlecraft accessories at very reasonable prices. For example, a pack of five round coasters costs just £7 (I paid over £2 each in the craft shop), and I bought a large piece (50cm X 60cm) of tapestry canvas for just £3.70. What’s more my order arrived in just under 48 hours and I was really pleased with the products.

I’ve also recently taken up a great deal in Cross Stitch magazines, with Cross Stitch Crazy and World of Cross Stitching running subscription offers whereby you receive five editions of either magazine for just £1 per issue (normal price £4.99). These are great magazines containing lots of lovely charts and they usually come with free mini kits too!

What recommendations do you have for great value crafting?