Clothes shops and fabric/wool mills

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For me, the best part of shopping is being able to run my fingers across all the clothes and feel the texture of the fabric, I've been told off before for doing this, so I usually do so when my parents aren't looking, haha.

It's the same with places that sell curtain fabric. Apparently some people dislike felt, but I don't mind it. I know this because my sister rubbed felt on my arm to see if I'd react, and when I was confused she explained "Some people dislike the feel of felt and react badly to it, but you don't and I'm glad that's not another one of your issues".

Yeah, my sister likes to wind me up for being "too sensitive" at times, so occasionally she'll make jokes about it.

Anyone else do this kind of thing, whilst out shopping? I don't particularly like shopping, so I usually don't go, but when I do I sometimes feel the different kinds of fabric. Makes it slightly more enjoyable.

You just reminded me of real fine cashmere I could touch at Turkish bazaar... I couldn't afford it but it was so perfect to the touch

When my Mum helped with my autism assessment, we discovered that we have a "fabric texture stim" in common. It's not rubbing our hands over the fabric so much, it's getting a pinch of fabric between thumb and finger, so that you rub two layers of the fabric against each other and feel the little vibrations from the threads slipping over each other. Both of us are very fussy about the kinds of fabric texture that feel just right, and we don't always like the same things (I prefer a coarser weave.) When clothes that have the right texture wear out, I quite often keep little pieces - having one in a coat pocket mean I've always got a nice discreet stim available if I'm getting a bit overloaded. Bits of net curtain are a particular favourite of mine.

I pretty much detest shopping, but I do always check the feel of the fabric when buying clothes. I can't always tell just by looking what will be a good "stim fabric", and I'm also quite fussy about what fabrics I'm comfortable wearing too.