Fabric Shopping In Tokyo: Nippori and Japanese Novelty Fabrics

When I started unpacking my Japanese fabric shopping bags, I knew that I would need to make it into two posts. Not because there’s that much fabric, but more because there were two pretty distinct groups of fabric – Liberty, and novelty. I’ve shared my Japanese Liberty fabric haul (with a dash of fabulous foodie fabric) from Yuzawaya, and now it’s time to share the goodies that I got from Nippori Textile Town.

I had minimal time to shop in Nippori, so I just headed straight to Tomato – the four-storey one – and got stuck in. I ducked in between all the other bargain shoppers to have a quick look through the cheap racks on the first floor, but nothing jumped out at me with screaming urgency to be bought.

So I headed upstairs to keep on browsing. My favourite floor is the one with all the Japanese cotton fabrics; a treasure trove of traditional, novelty, and quirky fabrics made in Japan. I had my eye out for some pretty specifically themed fabrics – Japanese girls, origami, ice cream fabric (to add to the foodie fabric pile), and anything newspaper. Because you know I now have a thing for Japanese newspaper fabric!

I hit the jackpot for origami and Japanese girls, and then that gorgeous space print jumped out at me with a bolt of design inspiration for a future project. So these prints represent three quilts with backings already sorted!

And my collection of foodie fabrics was rounded out with the perfect ice cream and cake print… in fact, I think the ice cream and cake print will replace the Yuwa patisserie print for the quilt I’m planning on backing with this print!

The top floor is where you’ll find all the international fabrics, i.e. USA fabric companies including Robert Kaufman, Moda, Free Spirit, and more. There’s tables of precuts organised by colour, and the bolts create the most beautiful rainbow around the walls.

I must admit to not even getting a snippet from the top floor for once. When I lived in Japan, I loved this floor as it was full of American designer fabrics (and now had a big Cotton + Steel featured section!) that I saw online… but without the international shipping costs! But now that I’m in Australia? Well, it’s still much cheaper than to buy locally in Australia, but the novelty of seeing it in person has gone. It seems I just wanted my novelty in fabric print form, ha!

And with that, I thought I was done. But as I exited the stairwell onto the bottom floor, I happened to glance towards the back of the store and spied a big rack of double gauze fabric… and was struck with inspiration. I had wanted to get my closest quilty BFFs a little something, and this would be perfect!

I’ll share what the inspiration was another day once I’ve finished with them, but let’s just say that the result made me very happy I happened to glance at the back of the shop!

So there you have it, the last part of my Japanese shopping haul. Well, the only other bits I didn’t photograph was a new Clover seam ripper, and a Sewline pen… nothing much exciting.

I should also let you know that I have fully updated my Fabric Shopping In Tokyo blog post that I first wrote over 5 years ago. It’s got updated information, new photos, and is all ready for your own fabric shopping adventures in Tokyo!