So What If I Sew

It’s been a few years since I’ve written a fabric shop review as frankly I ran out of fabric space so I had to start sewing the fabric from the shops I’d been reviewing. It’s a nice problem to have but not one that is easy to blog about I’ll be honest. However when Higgs & Higgs asked me if I’d like to review their online shop I jumped at the chance because I adore their fabrics! Every single show I go to that Higgs & Higgs is at, I end up buying something. It’s like a compulsion. Their stalls are always beautifully laid out and they always have a good selection of cosy knit fabrics (my winter kryptonite) so honestly it’s a foregone conclusion. What I’m slightly ashamed to say is that I didn’t know they had a website! So lets talk core details:

Higgs & Higgs

• Online Shop / Physical Shop / Both
• Web Link: https://higgsandhiggs.com
• Core Purpose: Dressmaking, Upholstery, Haberdashery
• Unit of Sale For Fabric: 0.5m / 1m / 2m / custom amount

Now let’s get the difficult bit out of the way, yes Higgs & Higgs have asked me to review them and they have sent me some fabric of my choosing. However*, as always all views are my own. Whether I’m sent fabric or a sewing machine to review I will always be 100% honest. I also do freelance website improvement reviews for fabric shops that are not published on here so you’d best believe I will always be honest about my experience. So ‘how will this review work if you’ve already been sent the fabric?’ I hear you cry, well it’s going to work like this. I get to pick the fabric so it will be the standard approach I take to web fabric shopping. I will go through the whole website, try to find fabrics I want, go through the selection to put them in my basket to see how that works, I will report on pricing, delivery, etc as normal, and then once they send me the fabric I’ll report on delivery, quality, packaging etc. So basically, I’ll do what I always do, it’s just on this occasion very kindly Higgs + Higgs will have gifted me the fabric.

Fabric Types

Higgs + Higgs stock a brilliant range of fabrics for dressmaking, upholstery, and quilting, plus they stock bias-binding and haberdashery so they make a great one stop shop. In terms of price the most affordable fabrics are as you would expect the cottons at £6.99pm with the upper end at £27/28pm for wools. In terms of fabric shops generally I would say they are middle ground in terms of affordability across their range of fabrics and we should also note that the quality of the fabric is reflected in the price.

This time I had a specific project in mind so choosing my fabric was really challenging because there are so many good autumnal fabrics. You all know I love a knit but on the other hand I’ve been wanting a white/cream denim midi skirt as a transitional piece. So my core choices were either the Luxe Faux Angora Cable Knit in Black or the Snow White 7oz Stretch Denim. In the end I decided as we are heading into Autumn/Winter I wanted to go cosy and chose the Black Luxe Faux Angora Cable Knit to make something I could wear in the office or at home. Although on this occasion my fabric was gifted I did see the payment process through to give it a test. Overall its what you’d expect from a payment system, I like that it’s integrated with Apple Pay for a speedier checkout, and unlike a lot of other websites the discount code box is obvious and the interface is clean and simple to use.

Overall the fabric buying process is very smooth. I like the standard measurements of 0.5m, 1m, 2m, as well as a custom option for the length you would like. The minimum is 0.5m but you can buy fabric 10cm at a time. There are a nice selection of capsule wardrobe patterns and a well-stocked haberdashery. In terms of delivery it’s £3.50 for orders under £50 and free delivery over £50 and it’s a pretty speedy 2-3 day. Not the most expensive delivery, particularly post-covid where I know courier prices have skyrocketed, but worth bearing in mind. My fabric arrived in less than 48 hours, it was well packaged, and arrived in great condition. Given the breadth of fabrics I’d recommend getting your moneys worth on free delivery and buying your bulkier autumnal and winter fabrics in one session.

Website Design & Functionality

The website is easy to use, the refresh and page load rate is really good. Why does this matter? Because when you have 15 tabs open of different fabrics it means that website still loads quickly which makes fabric shopping that bit easier. The only slight irritation I would note is that the side menu isn’t optimised which would be a good thing to fix to make navigation even easier. There are a couple of broken links but that is fairly common for websites with a high number of fabric types that change regularly. However that being said, I really like the search functionality from the top bar and its clear that effort has been put into the web design to ensure its easy to browse the full catalogue of fabrics while also being able to break down into sub-genres of fabric type and even patterned or plain within those typologies. They stock so many types of fabric that being able to search in this detail is a godsend.

When scrolling for fabric, you can filter by price or popularity which is helpful. I also love the detail on every listing with fabric information, good photo quality – and yes I partially wanted to get black fabric to see how the photo matched the reality – this is a review after all. Each fabric landing page has suggestions for what you could use it to make and there are not only detailed fabric composition stats but there are also washing instructions which is brilliant and greatly appreciated. Particularly for this upcoming project as I’ll be working with a faux Angora knit that I do not want to ruin it by accident!

So you guys know the score or you will in a second! Let’s do the round-up.

Review Score:

• Range of Fabrics: 9
• Cost: 7
• Delivery (Speed/Cost): 7
• Ease of use: 8
• Ease of payment: 9

Total Average Score: 8/10

Overall I am impressed with Higgs & Higgs, they are an excellent one stop shop and I look forward to visiting them in person next time I’m over that way. I like the range of fabrics, I particularly like their new quilted fabrics which would make an amazing Pogonip Pullover or a Megan Nielsen Hovea Coat, and I love the amount of effort they put into telling you about each fabric. Head over to their website to have a nosy at their stock and if you are ever at one of the sewing shows look them up and see for yourself! I never leave without at least one new knitted fabric.