Bemberg Lining: The Italian connection

It is an acknowledged fact that sewing is enjoying a revival in the UK, largely thanks to the Great British Sewing Bee. This has in turn led to the revival in fortunes of various sewing machine vendors, and the proliferation of many sewing related businesses. I feel everyday on the blogosphere there is a post about a new online fabric shop, or independent pattern company. Thats all well and good. The more new companies that come up, the more choice we as consumers enjoy. There is a limit to this resurgence though. Have you ever tried to find good quality lining in the UK? Don't get me wrong, we do have good quality lining, but just not at a budget friendly price. Not at the prices enjoyed by those Americans. They who seem to have everything.

Most of what is readily available here in the UK is regular anti static lining fabric, which does not inspire. Our cousins over in the US wax lyrical all the time about Bemberg rayon lining. A snoop around the Mood website revealed it was being sold at $6.99/yard. Back home, you can find the same thing here for £12.90/m, or here for £11.94/m . MacCulloch and Wallis also sell a version of this called Bremsilk at £11/m. I have for a long time now been on the lookout for this lining at a more affordable price but my forays into the Goldhawk road shops were largely unsuccessful. No one knew what I was talking about.

Fortunately, I recently fell across a post by Sylvia from the Sewing Princess blog, on Italian fabric shops. A couple of them had user friendly websites in English and I spent some time going through each of them. And what do you know, I came across the Pinotti website, and its massive collection of cupro bemberg linings, and other type of linings.

So I got out my calculator, did some maths and ordered 25 metres of white lining, because I could always dye it to any colour.  They have a fixed postage rate to the UK and other parts of Europe of €21,90. So with delivery and tax, it came down to €5.82/m (£4.13/m). Tidy!!

The delivery was by DHL and took a couple of days mainly because they sent me an email about wanting my phone number for communication purposes, and I did not see the message on time. As soon as I sent my number, my parcel was dispatched the same day. Plus they wrote to me in English. All in all, the service was really good.

Have you been using this lining here in the UK? If yes, where do you normally buy it from?