A little bit of Sydney Road shopping - Part 2

Thanks to Sew4Fun who was able to clear up the mystery of half sizes on vintage patterns for me :)

In her own words:
"Half Sizes are an old pattern sizing that were phased out in the 80's I think. It used to be thought of as the "mature figure type".
The half-size lady has a fully developed figure but is shorter, about 5'2" to 5'3" tall. The waist is also larger in proportion to the bust, and the shoulders are narrower. "
So I guess that means I have a prematurely "mature figure" (except for the height issue) lol.


My main reason for visiting Sydney road was to (hopefully) pick up some winter-style children's fabric. Unfortunately for me most of the little fabric shops dotted up and down (and there are many!) seemed to cater more to women's dress fabrics or evening fabrics. Also as it is currently the beginning of summer here winter fabrics like polar fleece were pretty much non-existent. So that left Spotlight. The Brunswick branch, smack in the middle of Sydney road.

I kinda have a love/hate relationship with Spotlight. Sometimes I love Spotlight - such as when I find a store that has a large dressmaking fabric section, or friendly helpful staff, or they have a 20% off sale :)

Other times it’s a case of vast disappointment - such as when the store has cut back its dressmaking supplies to almost nonexistent to make room for "home decor" items, when the queues to have fabric cut are impossibly long and I have a short time budget due to being on a lunch break or when the exact pattern I want is sold out in my size and the new order doesn’t arrive for weeks on end.

Sydney Road Spotlight is kind of in between the two - I neither loved nor hated it but I would probably rather shop elsewhere if I can help it! Firstly -while not being non-existent - the fabric/dressmaking section was small. Now given that the entire shop itself wasn't huge (they do have to squeeze into old buildings and I imagine rental would be high) I can understand that, but unfortunately it does limit your options somewhat. The haberdashery section was tiny - compared to other stores- and made near impossible to reach by two massive fabric roll trolleys blocking up the aisle. Being pregnant I have found I'm getting less and less agile the bigger I get and this was a real pain as what I wanted was right behind the trolleys.
On the plus side they did have the pattern in stock I wanted ( Kwik Sew 2978) and some baby suitable fabrics.

Unfortunately though the range of baby fabrics - at least in stretchy fabrics suitable for rompers - was limited. Fabric choices were either terry towelling in three colours (white, pink and blue) and a cotton knit in 2 prints- one really cute red elephants and the other a so-so animal print in red or black. Polar fleece seemed to be thin on the ground, either I missed it in my hurry to get out of there or they had removed it to make room for summer stock. I did see some on the sales trolley that had Dora the explorer or Spiderman on it but didn't really think it’s really age appropriate for babies. Besides I hate dressing kids in head to toe movie/ TV merchandise.

The flannel table yielded better results with all flannel being marked down to $2 a metre, so I picked up a couple of metres of lemon yellow and sorbet green. Not what I came in for but am sure it will come in handy for bunny rugs or something :)

Probably the most disappointing part of the whole store visit was the customer service I received from one of the staff when asking if they had a particular item in stock. Now I know Spotlight stores sell Kwik Sew books - or at least they did up until I moved to Melbourne. Darwin used to have a range of titles in stock and I think I even saw the odd FFRP on display at times when in Perth. However after checking out the twirly magazine/book racks in this store (and having to squeeze past stock to do that) all I came up with was a plethora of "Get Creative" magazines and knitting titles.

So I asked a staff member if they had Kwik Sew titles in stock.

Staff member looked at me and said "All we have is over there" (waves arm in general direction of twirly racks) then gives me a look that made me feel like I was asking a reeeaaally stupid question. Now other Spotlight stores I have been in - if the staff member is on the ball- they offer to look up items on the system and order stock in, if its available and even if it’s really busy and there’s a queue behind me (oops did I complain about queues before? ). Now this store was quiet (I was the only person in line) and maybe this staff member was new, or having a bad day, but they didn't offer to look anything up or even try to find out if these books were ever stocked.

Retail staff please note: I don't care if you have to make a phone call, ask another staff member or search a computer, at least attempt tomake the most basic effort to find out!! I'll wait if it's something I really want, honestly!

I know Spotlight stores are part of a large chain and you probably can't expect the same level of service you would get from smaller, family run stores but still it was way under what I expected. I love sewing and even if the person on the other side of the counter is not a sewer I expect some sort of enthusiasm for the job and a reasonably helpful level of customer service. Is that too much to ask?

Ok, rant over....