Fabworks Celebrates 30 Years
This year, 2026, Fabworks Mill Shop reached its thirtieth birthday, and we decided that three decades of fabulous fabrics, customers, creativity and a very family business deserved more than just a cake in the staff room. So for two weeks from 27th July until 9th August Fabworks Mill Shop became even more colourful than usual, a little busier and considerably more celebratory. We filled the Mil Shop with birthday specials, workshops, prizes, familiar faces and new customers, and gave plenty of reasons to make the journey to our little corner of West Yorkshire. It all culminated with the Grand Finale on Sunday 9th August, the first time in Fabworks history that the Mill Shop had opened on a Sunday. We had spent months thinking about it, weeks preparing for it and, if we’re being completely truthful, quite a bit of time wondering whether anybody would actually turn up. You did! And in both greater numbers and from even further afield than we had expected. We even had customers who made a special trip from South Wales! Our Super Sunday was one of those rare days when a plan on paper becomes something even better in real life.
Fabworks’ Festive Fortnight
The celebrations were not just about one Sunday. For two weeks, we wanted a visit to Fabworks Mill Shop to feel a little different. There were exclusive in-store offers, things happening around the shop and opportunities to get involved rather than simply coming in, choosing fabric and going home again. That was important to us because Fabworks has always been about more than simply selling metres of cloth. Fabric is the beginning of something, whether a dress, coat, cushion, pair of trousers, an experiment, a first attempt, a slightly over-ambitious project or something made simply because you fell in love with the fabric and had no idea what you were going to do with it.
For our birthday, we wanted to celebrate that creative process as much as the fabric itself, and judging by the projects being discussed across the cutting tables throughout the two weeks, there are going to be some very busy sewing rooms over the coming months.
A birthday surprise every day 🎁
We wanted the two-week celebration to feel special from the moment the Mill Shop opened each morning, not simply like an ordinary fortnight with a few birthday decorations added. There was a new offer every day, with each an in-store exclusive. This birthday belonged to Fabworks Mill Shop, our bricks-and-mortar home, and each offer was created especially for those who made the journey to visit us in person.
There was no huge stockpile and no online version. Each offer was deliberately small, individual and limited, often using unusual fabrics, special finds or one-off quantities that simply wouldn’t fit within our normal ranges. From £1 satin to one-off cashmeres, the birthday offers were an appropriately mixed Fabworks assortment. There was linen-cotton shirting at £5 per metre, alongside specially reduced fabrics marked with our pink birthday tickets. There were Yorkshire wool cushion covers, craft bundles, linen remnant packs and cashmere selvedges - little collections designed to spark a creative idea. Amongst the specials were also one-off cashmere lengths, offering the chance to take home something rather more luxurious and unusual. Once they were gone, they were gone.
These were often things you hadn’t come into Fabworks intending to buy, but discovered, picked up and suddenly began imagining what they might become: a bag, cushion, gift, shirt, patchwork project - or something destined to sit in the sewing room until exactly the right idea arrives. That sense of discovery has always been part of the pleasure of visiting a real fabric shop, and we wanted plenty of it during our birthday celebrations. For those who visited more than once, there was always the possibility that something completely new had appeared since the last visit. Quite a good excuse to come back.
Fabworks now reaches customers far beyond West Yorkshire, and our online shop is an enormously important part of the business. But Fabworks began as a physical place. Thirty years ago, it was little more than a corner of a warehouse, a handful of rolls of fabric and a pop-up table. There was no website or social media - simply fabric, people and the experience of coming to see what was there. Three decades later, the Mill Shop has changed almost beyond recognition, but that experience still matters enormously to us. You can touch the cloth, unroll it, drape it, compare fabrics, ask someone what they think and talk through the project you’re planning - or the one you’ve only just invented because you found the right fabric.
So, for these two weeks, we deliberately kept the birthday specials in-store only, our little thank you to those who came through the doors and helped us celebrate the place where Fabworks started.
Workshops, full houses and plenty of making 🪡
All 40 tickets sold out for the exclusive 2-hour birthday workshops (£5.00 per person), held on Saturday 1st and 8th August. For us, this was one of the loveliest parts of the celebrations. A fabric shop should be a place that encourages people to make things, learn things, ask questions and occasionally have a go at something they’ve never attempted before.
The workshops brought exactly the atmosphere that we had hoped. There was making, talking, learning and plenty of encouragement, with a variety experience levels and people who had never met before sitting alongside one another and becoming engrossed in something creative. Our attendees’ response was wonderful, and it was particularly satisfying to see people leaving Fabworks not simply carrying something they had bought, but something they had made. That feels very ‘Fabworksian’ to us.
Sunday: The Grand Finale 🎉
Sunday 9th August was the big one, with our first ever Sunday opening and the Fabworks 30th Birthday Grand Finale. And the whole Stross family was there - Gil, father of the family and the centre of it all from day one, Jane (Gil’s wife) whose idea Fabworks originally was and without whom there quite simply wouldn’t be a Fabworks and there’d be no 30th to celebrate, and their sons George and Leo, who now run operations and make the decisions for the future of the business.
We had planned, prepared, organised, decorated, briefed, rearranged and discussed just about every eventuality. Would enough people come? Would everybody arrive at once? Would the car park cope? Would something important be forgotten? As it turned out, we need not have worried quite so much.
Before we cut the ribbon there was already a large queue forming, and right from the moment we opened there was a stream of enthusiastic visitors. Before long the Mill Shop had exactly the atmosphere we had hoped for. It was busy!
Lots of familiar faces called in to say hello and show their support, as well as many first-time visitors, in fact many more than we had expected, yet somehow the day remained relaxed, friendly and unmistakably Fabworks. We even welcomed Sandra, the very first person ever employed by Fabworks. Sandra returned to visit us for the first time in 16 years after a special request from Jane Stross. Having Fabworks’ first-ever employee walk back through the door felt particularly significant. There were other familiar faces too - former colleagues, longstanding customers, friends and people who have played their own part in the Fabworks story.
Businesses like ours are not built entirely through plans, products and spreadsheets. They are built through thousands of interactions with people over many years. Seeing so many of those connections come together again on one Sunday made the day feel just what it was intended to be: a celebration of Fabworks.
Fabworks remains what it was when it began: a family-run fabric business with an unusually large extended family around it, and that extended family includes the people who work here every day. Grand Finale Sunday was therefore not opening the shop for an extra day but opening the doors to a gathering of the wider Fabworks family. George, one of owners, commented “it was a garden party vibe just with lots of fabric”.
Even the car parking, one of our biggest pre-event concerns, behaved itself. Mostly.
Eight Golden Tickets 🎫
Naturally, we could not have a birthday celebration without adding a little extra Fabworks’ fun.
Hidden around Fabworks Mill Shop on Sunday were 8 Golden Tickets hidden across the shop – under shelves, in-between rolls, cunningly concealed and all within reach for eagle-eyed visitors. Each golden ticket was a 10inch cardboard cut-out of a Swaledale (sheep native to Yorkshire pastures), each with a voucher or prize attached to redeem in-store on the day. Some were easier to find than others, but even so, by the end of the day, all eight had been discovered and each had been redeemed.
Heritage Talks 🗣️
Taking us back to where it all began, 30 years in a few stories.
One of the most memorable parts of Sunday was our Fabric Specialist Dawn gathering visitors together for two short talks at 11:00 and 14:00, exploring the history and heritage of Fabworks. Both went down a storm. Dawn (who has been part of the Fabworks family for 16 years) took us back through some of the people, places, fabrics, changes and moments that have shaped the business over three decades. For our visitors, it offered a glimpse behind the shelves and fabric rolls into the story of the business itself. For those of us who work here, it did something slightly different. It reminded us just how much has happened. Even members of the Fabworks team who live and breathe the business every day came away having gleaned something they had not known before.
Thirty years can easily become a number. Hearing the stories attached to those years - the people who were there, the decisions that were made, the places Fabworks occupied and the way the business gradually evolved - made those three decades feel real again. For a little while, everyone stopped shopping and simply listened. They were some of the loveliest moments of the day. Thanks for sharing your stories, Dawn, there certainly were some corkers in there!
Birthday Tombola📦
(where everyone won a prize)
Customers who picked a tombola ticket went home with a guaranteed prize that would appeal to creative minds: fabric, whether a bundle or material, that might become the starting point for an entirely new project. The only risk involved was possibly adding another project to an already ambitious sewing ‘to do’ list.
A birthday cake worthy of the occasion 🎂
Thirtieth birthday require a proper birthday cake. Fortunately, we had Chloe. Chloe, showing she is as creative with baking as she is sewing, made the Fabworks 30th birthday cake especially for the celebration, and somehow managed to create something that felt completely appropriate for the occasion.
It was beautiful, carefully made and unmistakably created with Fabworks in mind - one of those cakes that everybody admires before somebody eventually has to accept responsibility for being the one to cut into it.
It almost seemed a shame. Almost.
Chloe is set to leave Fabworks this summer after 11 years of loyal service and creative energy at Fabworks as she starts a new chapter becoming a teacher. Chloe - you really did us proud and this last swansong from you was in true Chloe style - a high quality output with the most beautiful fabric-themed cake. Thank you, Chloe, we will miss you!
And Chloe is not the only person we would like to thank.
The people that are behind Fabworks 👨👩👧👦
If you visited during the celebrations, you would have met at least one of the Fabworks team, helping you choose a fabric, discussing your project, cutting your cloth, pointing you in the right direction or enthusiastically disappearing to find something they thought might be absolutely perfect for what you were making. That is an important part of what Fabworks is. We’re fortunate to have a team of people who are not only knowledgeable and friendly, but who are genuinely interested in what you are making. It is not scripted customer service. They actually care. And throughout the birthday celebrations, that team was at its very best, so thank you to each and every one of them and a particular thank you to Claudia & Stacey.
Big occasions are inevitably remembered through photographs and standout moments, but behind every one of those moments are people who spent the days beforehand making sure these moments could happen. For our birthday celebrations, Claudia, Fabworks Mill Shop Manager and MVP, poured an enormous amount of creative energy into bringing the event to life, and so much of what visitors saw and experienced had been influenced by the thought and energy she had put into everything over a full-throttle two weeks. On Sunday itself, she was the star of the show. Claudia was supported throughout by co-manager Stacey, whose significant contributions helped bring the many elements of the birthday celebrations together, so thank you both.
The Extended Fabworks Family
Claudia, Mill Shop Manager
Stacey, Mill Shop Manager
Thank YOU 🙌
And a thank you to you, every Fabworks visitor who came along on the day and joined in to make our celebrations a success. When we originally started planning Fabworks’ 30th birthday, we knew we could organise an event. What we could not organise was the atmosphere. That bit depended on you. It depended on people travelling, old familiar faces returning, first-time visitors deciding that Sunday 9th August was finally the day to make the trip.
Some people came a long way, and we enjoyed meeting everyone so much we would like to engage more with you. Conversations have already begun about what the next Fabworks event might be - there is no secret plan hiding in a drawer, so we’d like your ideas.
What would you, our customers, like to see next time?
Would it be more workshops and fabric demonstrations?
Specialist talks and guest makers?
A particular sewing theme?
What would genuinely encourage you to make the journey up to West Yorkshire?
Tell us what would encourage you to visit Fabworks
We’re listening and all sensible ideas are welcome. Ambitious ideas are welcome, too. Slightly ridiculous ideas may actually be the most interesting because if we’re going to have another Fabworks party, we might as well make it one worth putting in the diary.
The Grand Finale In Pictures 📸
The birthday isn’t quite finished… 👀
The official celebrations may now be over, but a few remnants of the birthday are still available in the Mill Shop. A selection of our special birthday offers will continue until the end of August, while stocks last. So, if you didn’t manage to make it during the celebrations, there is still an opportunity to see what remains. And if you did visit but have subsequently decided that you definitely should have bought that other piece of fabric you kept looking at… We understand completely. Just don’t leave it too long!
Here’s to the next chapter 📖
Thirty years of Fabworks has given us an extraordinary collection of fabrics, people, stories and memories. Sunday 9th August 2026 added a few more.
A bustling Mill Shop.
Eight Golden Tickets.
A beautiful birthday cake.
Two Heritage Talks.
Old friends returning.
New customers arriving.
A whole family together.
A brilliant team.
And considerably more people than we had expected to squeeze through the doors.
It was a beautiful occasion, and one we’ll remember for a long time.
Thank you for being part of the Fabworks story.
Here’s to whatever we make next.
