About Us

Hi, thanks for browsing our website! My name is Kathy, and I am the owner and founder of Sewcialising, a lovely Fabric Shop and Sewing Studio in the beautiful city of York, in North Yorkshire in the United Kingdom.

A few years ago, I renovated a grade II listed building in York town centre. I was already a business owner and I was looking for an office building. Little did I know that I would take on the beast that is 1 Coffee Yard! But I fell in love with the building and saw its potential even though the building was derelict and it required a lot of work. I hadn’t planned to take on a project of this size, but for some reason my gut instinct told me it was what I needed to do – as cliche as it sounds, it is true!

Throughout the renovation works, I struggled to find a fun sewing workshop that wasn’t in a typical ‘classroom’ setting, so my idea started as a ‘funky sewing studio’ that would offer some short and fun sewing classes for beginner and intermediate sewers. I wanted to create a nice space that was a bit different from the norm, where like-minded people would come together to sew.

As the building was listed, we needed to get planning permission to get any works done, so my ideas and plans changed somewhat over the course of the project. I soon realised that I would require fabrics to sell alongside the sewing classes and seeing as the building is in such a prime location, it seemed silly not to sell fabrics! So Sewcialising was born!

I personally don’t have any sewing qualifications and am a self taught sewer, but I plan to bring in freelance sewing teachers for the more experienced intermediate classes. I believe you can be a perfectionist and finish a garment or project perfectly or you can just do your best. But I truly believe you should have fun along the way!

We were due to launch the Sewcialising bricks and mortar shop in April 2020, just weeks after the first lockdown was announced unfortunately. Such bad timing! So with much hesitation due to Covid and Brexit, I decided to launch December 2020 and to just go for it.  We were open for exactly 25 days before we had to close again due to another lockdown, which was unfortunate but to be expected - but my word, those first few weeks were amazing.  I was so overwhelmed by everyone's support and enthousiasm at the time. The whole sewing community seemed to be very excited that we'd opened and people went out of their way and came from far to support us, it was so lovely!

We've now been in business for about a year and a half and it's been so good!  Hard work, but good.  We've hosted lots of fun sewing workshops and met so many lovely people along the way! 

We hope to be York’s leading fabric shop where you can buy gorgeous fabrics & haberdashery for any sewing project, buy yarns for any knitting or crochet project and experience fun sewing and craft workshops.

We look forward to seeing you soon!

Many thanks

Kind regards
Kathy

Sewcialising