a walk in outer Alexandria

Yesterday, I took a walk in outer Alexandria or possibly Beaconsfield depending on which map you look at. If you live in Sydney, you know yesterday was not a day for walking. My four block jaunt to the video store resulted in picking pieces of hail off my jersey. I went to Alexandria none-the-less, but the weather may taint my review.


A. The 3km walk starts at Green Square station. One of the newest train stations in Sydney, it's on the airport line so you get to ride the expensive nice trains that were put in place to fool the tourists at the 2000 Olympics. The rest of us know better. You will come out on Botany Road in a warehouse district. This region has scattered outlet and wholesale stores, mixed with auto body shops. I should have paid more attention but I was keen to get to my first stop I think I spied a paper bag wholesaler, but don't quote me on it.

B. The first stop was The Remnant Warehouse at 494 Botany Rd.
[Image from their website]


I have twice said that you should go. If my beautiful stacks weren't incentive enough, would you believe I got American Jane fat quarters for $2 and yardage for $4.95?!? They stock quite a range, but not all at that crazy value. I saw the latest collections including Daisy Chain, Ginger Blossom, Nest, Denyse Schmidt cheater cloth and more. And if you want a Clover gadget in Sydney, this is your place.

Everyone at the counter was extremely friendly. Owen, who served me, knew most of the gals by name. I think they had four or five staff on hand that day, all helping out and smiling. Two different fabric reps came in to show off their latest lines while I was there. They offered me tea or coffee to warm up, I declined but took them up when they handed out lollies. It was a very pleasant experience again!

C. Next I headed over to the new Lincraft that was advertised at the CBD's going out of business sale. I'll be honest, it's a Lincraft so my expectations were low. I hoped that because it was new, the button tubes wouldn't be ravaged and there might be something different to all of the other Lincrafts I've seen.

Walking up to the building on the corner of Oriordan and Doody, my expectations got out of control. Right after the nice big ugly purple Lincraft logo was a bright orange word BULK. Had I read it wrong? Was it really a store for high volume? I made my way into the Homecentre and saw another BULK sign and wiggled with excitement. In my head, I planned to take home 2000 buttons and 15 fabric markers.

Perhaps the sign should have read BUNK, as there was nothing bulk about this store. It was smaller than most Lincraft's I've visited. I walked in and looked around. There was absolutely no staff at the front counter. Odd, I thought. There was also no staff at the cutting counter. Even odder.

The weather turned to crap and I realized that I was now stuck at a small Lincraft in the middle of nowhere with the nearest train station 1.5km away. So I hunkered down in the plastic picnic chairs at a plastic table to look through pattern catalogues for a Halloween costume. This brought the only small joy at this shell of a store. There's a really gleeful feeling when opening pattern catalogues and realizing that no one else has looked through these books. The spines were all stiff solid, and I could hardly even turn the pages in the Vogue. I wanted to sit there and shamelessly crack each spine. Since they had Michael Jackson looping through the sound system, I felt entitled.

I can only imagine this is where all of the staff was. They were staring at the radio trying to figure out how to change the CD. "So, Annie are you ok? Are you ok, Annie?" Any smooth (or not-so-smooth) criminal could have easily walked out with half the store. I believe in karma though, so I scored nothing. And that's exactly what I bought. I'd skip this jaunt in the future.

D. Next I walked past True Alliance and saw they had a factory outlet sale. I didn't go in. If you're in the neighborhood and like Ben Sherman, Lacoste and Royal Elastics; this is probably a shop for you.

E. A little further down the road was what I'm calling Pyrex Heaven. It may well be called My Grandma's and Mom's Kitchen in the Early 80's, but I think it's actually call World Kitchen.

I was lured in by the rows and rows of Pyrex in the window and pulled through the store to the Visions Cookware. If I hadn't been on foot, I'd have three new see-through pots at this very moment. I must go back and take Craig's strong arms with me.

Along with the Visions pots, I spied my Corelle and Corning Wear which gave me a comfy home feeling, but they lacked the patterns of my childhood. I scoured Flickr and came up with shots that well could have come from my family.

Yee_Haw has the same green and gold sets my mother owned. Though we had more green than gold.


And this shocking plate from the Corelle Indian Summer collection that my grandmother owned and I inherited. I used this pattern for close to five years. If can be yours for $1 from knobby_wheezer


I secretly wanted to find these patterns and get a mug or plate. One small piece of my childhood that I wanted to reclaim. No such luck, but lots of new and wonderful stuff at World Kitchen.

F. The last marked destination, I didn't actually stop at but thought it may appeal to bargain shoppers. OO has a showroom for their online mega-discount store on Oriordan street. If you're thinking of picking up any electronics, you may be able to check them out in person first.

G. Then I made my way back to Green Square, a tad wet but very happy with my finds at Remnant Warehouse. It's was a short 3km walk and good explore other parts of the city.

Let me know if there's somewhere in your neighborhood that's worth a wander!