Another visit to the Standfast Factory Shop, Lancaster

Way back in May last year I took a trip to the Standfast & Barracks factory shop in Lancaster.

Got some lovely fabrics - none of which I have got around to using yet, but that's nothing unusual.  But anyway, it was time to go again  :)

The plan was for me, Shona (daughter) and Marie (daugher's girlfriend) to go for a rummage around the Standfast factory shop, then head off to Festival Market in Morecambe where they have some good fabrics at cheap prices, have lunch, walk on Morecambe Bay beach and head home.

The weather has been pretty rough of late so the trip was 'weather permitting', but this morning it was beautiful, cold, but bright.  So off we went.

The factory shop is not far from the M6 Motorway heading into Lancaster.  You park opposite the building .....and dash across the busy road - not fun when Marie was accompanied by a pair of crutches.

...and dash across the busy road - not fun when Marie was accompanied by a pair of crutches.

Through the gate and look for a black door.

Open the door to reveal a magical rainbow of colours, and textures.

Then you have to decide which ones you want!

Bargain prices too.

This is my stash.... a fent for perhaps making some seat covers for my conservatory chairs as the cats keep casting hair all over them and no one else will sit down.

And this gorgeous fabric that I think I might make a bag with  :)

Close up - it's all glittery!

And I could not resist a 'scrap bag', just one shiny pound for all this.

Then of we trotted to the market only to find it was CLOSED !   What market closes on a Friday?  I should have checked the website, but it didn't occur to me that a market would be closed on a Friday - Monday maybe, but not Friday.  Actually, according to their website they are closed both Mondays and Fridays, so be careful if you are planning a trip!


So we went for lunch instead, to a Fayre & Square pub - where they used to do a lovely vegetarian toad-in-the-hole, which was in fact three sausages sitting in a large Yorkshire pud with mash and peas, and gravy of course.   But it was missing from the menu  (sad face) instead there was sausage and mash with Yorkshire pudding, peas and gravy (happy face) so I had that instead  :)  Haha, you have to wonder what the point is.

By the time we came out of the pub it was lashing down, great, nice big droplets of rain and a 60+ mile trip home down the M6.

Before we got to the Motorway though we stopped off at a little haberdashery shop I had found on Google, will post a blog about that soon.

The trip home was eventful, the speed restrictions were flashing at 30mph a lot of the way home, especially over Shap, which is often shut with extreme weather conditions.

The rain was bouncing - can you believe there was drivers with no lights on and the visibility was terrible?  I even had to put my fog lights on at times as it was so bad.   We passed loads of accidents on the way home, and even aquaplaned a couple of times which was a bit hairy.

Then the snow started, snow that I have never seen the like of before.  Great big cotton wool sized balls of snow that exploded on the windscreen with a big "splooosh".

But now we are home, nice and cosy warm in the house.  Drooling over our purchases and wondering what to do with them  :)