Materials Shopping – Taiwan

Finally, I have the fabrics unpacked from my luggage, arranged and photographed. It has been 2 months since my shopping and vacation trip to Taiwan. I touched down at Taiwan with 20kg (44 lbs) check-in luggage and returned with 60kg (132 lbs). Out of the 40kg extra, majority of them are the craft materials I bought there, food came next followed by books and souvenirs.

Due to Taiwan’s geographical location and with the influential of Japanese culture, you may find that their craft style are towards kawaii. If you have plans to visit Taiwan, do spare a day or 2 to shop for some craft materials. Besides, Taiwan is also famous for it’s food, not sure which shop to eat? Easy, get into the shops with the most customers and you won’t be wrong.

The following are the places I would like to share with you where I bought my craft materials and books from.

Yong Le Market (永樂市場) – Map
The biggest textile market in Taipei, located at DiHua Street (迪化街), Taipei. It is a real fabric shopping heaven with nearly thousand of fabric shops in this area!!! Most shops closed on Sunday.

You will find lots of shops selling all kinds of fabrics and sewing notions, from quilting cotton, canvas, to upholstery and pile fabrics at 1st floor and 2nd floor of the market and the shops surrounding it. If you shop from door to door, you would need to spend at least 2 days here. Due to limited time allowed, I managed to do a quick shopping in a few shops within 1 day.

Look at the fabrics inside the market, note that this is only half the aisle along side and there are a few aisle in each floor. It is like a maze inside the market, all you got to see are fabrics everywhere. I lost myself in the market and can’t find the right entrance I came in when I am about to leave. If I wasn’t considering about the maximum weight I can carry for my check-in luggage and the maximum quantity I can hand-carry back without customs taxes and duties, I could have bought tons of them back…. how I wish I live next to this lovely market.

Besides those commonly found fabrics, there are also some shops selling pile fabrics, from microfiber and fleece, to faux leather and faux fur. You are to be amazed by the varieties of fabrics found here. Again, if it wasn’t the weight, I could have brought back a lot.

In fact, I went to this area twice, in the morning, my daughter and I went back to the hotel with 2 full bags of fabrics which my daughter helped to carry a lighter one. We took a brief lunch and went to Bear Mama (the second last photo from the bottom) for the second trip to this area. After buying a big bag of yarns (not in the photos above) and some purse accessories from Bear Mama,we walked back to the market and shop again.

Bear Mama (小熊媽媽DIY) – also available Online, in Chinese only
Many of you wonder where I bought my purse making notion, like frame, handles, locks, metal zippers with cute pull etc…. This is one of the shops I bought some of them from. The shop is just a walking distance from Yong Le Market.

Eslite (誠品) bookstore
After a long day of shopping and lugging a few bags of nice fabrics back to the hotel, my daughter and I decided to spend a quite and relax evening at a book store off Zhong Xiao East Road (忠孝東路) near our hotel.

As usual, the first place I would go to is the craft book section. Most of the craft books are in Chinese and Japanese, and the choices are simply profusion. I bought a few craft books for inspirations and hope to share some of the ideas one day.