The Late Night Sewist

Yesterday a funny coincidence occurred – at some point during the day I had the idea of helping travelling sewists, who would like to buy  some fabric on their trip to Athens, by giving directions to the relevant shops.

And as I checked the statistics of my blog later on, I saw that someone had stumbled upon my blog with search term “fabric shops in Athens”. Sadly, that person had to leave empty-handed.

I will not point out all the shops one by one, as they are all very conveniently gathered together in a small pedestrian street in the center of Athens. This makes it easier for the travelling sewists to get their shopping done without putting too much pressure on the non-sewist co-travelers. The latter can either take plenty of photos of the nearby tiny but nevertheless picturesque Kapnikareas church or get dizzy in the busy shopping street Ermou.

The first map shows directions from Monastiraki metro station, blue and green metro lines run there:

The second map shows directions when coming from Syntagma metro station, blue and red line:

Once you are in Kalamiotou street, it is impossible to miss the fabric shops because all of them have rolls of fabric presented right outside their doors. You can find everything from home decor fabrics to fake fur and silk.

You will notice that most of them have no price tags at all and this is the tricky part. Basically they can ask you any price they want, so I suggest taking a look at several shops and ask for prices for similar fabrics, to get a better picture first. You can try bargaining, which will probably be successful, especially if you buy more than one fabric, something pricey or just a large quantity.

I cannot promise that the shop assistants (in most cases actually owners) speak fluent English, but for sure they will try to help you as much as they can.

The prices generally are rather good in my opinion, you can expect to pay around 6 to 10 EUR/m for doubleknits, synthetic charmeuse and stretch cotton sateen. Silk fabrics are around 18-25 EUR/m.

For more fabrics and notions, there are a few good shops here, in Perikleous street (notice that it is just around the corner from the previous shops), directions starting from Syntagma, via Perikleous to Kalamiotou:

There is also one shop in Ermou street, Kalaviotis, that has buttons, linings, zippers and other notions. You have to go downstairs to the underground level to find these things, as on the ground floor they sell some garments, Crocs shoes, umbrellas and underwear (don’t ask me why such a selection!) The address is Ermou 8 and it is in the beginning of Ermou street when coming from Syntagma Square.

I will try to remember to take my camera with me the next time, to illustrate this post with a street view photo.

Here are a few photos of Kalamiotou street and the interior of one of the shops:

I hope this helps!