whiptips: advice on purchasing fabrics online
Whiptips craft advice column for readers to ask questions or offer advice by leaving comments. Whiptips archive here. Questions to whiptips@gmail.com.
Katie wrote in asking for advice on fabric purchase.
I’m interested in finding out where people who are making clothing are purchasing their fabrics. I have very few actual stores near me, and those there are stock largely quilting fabrics (if that’s what I wanted, I would have a bajillion places to buy it) and things like wacky novelty print flannels.
I’m specifically interested in making baby clothes (pregnant with our first child), and some adult basics (priority heavily on the baby side – I don’t care too much about making clothes for me), so essentially knits, jerseys, and really soft fabrics for the baby are what I’m after. Organic cottons that are soft enough for a baby would also be great. I’ve looked online and the prices are not so hot from what I’ve found, and the selections aren’t fantastic either.
Any tips would be great!
August 30th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I’ve always been happy with my fabric purchases from fabricmartfabrics.com and they have great prices. The website lists only a fraction of what they carry so sign up for the sample mailers. You may have trouble finding organic cotton at a low price but soft jersey shouldn’t be a problem.
August 30th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
organiccottonplus.com has good prices on a limited selection of organic knits. You can also find a large variety of organics at pmorganics.com and nearseanaturals.com, and http://www.harmonyart.com/ has a cute line of organic knit prints.
August 30th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Sewbaby.com always gave me great service when I was sewing for a wee one. Not sure if they have organic cottons but they do have a lot of knits, patterns and notions along with awesome customer service reps.
August 30th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
I have had success with fabrics bought through etsy.com at cheapthreads. She has a nice selection at very good prices. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5021470
I have to touch fabrics, as a rule, so I usually buy from my local fabric store. Also, since I have moved here, four fabric stores have gone out of business, so I feel an obligation to spend my money locally. But, especially when I want vintage fabrics, I will buy online.
August 31st, 2007 at 12:58 am
I have a few websites that I really trust–good photos and decent descriptions. Sometimes I am surprised; mostly its for the better. A lot of times, if its a smaller online fabric store, you can email the seller and ask for more information about the hand of a fabric.
For natural linens, cottons, and generally “French Generale” looking fabrics at substantially lower prices, I’d recommend http://www.periodfabric.com/ . Their prices are SO low, and the material is absolutely lovely. I’ve bought lots of linen and never once been disappointed. With two or three washings, the linen gets sooooo soft.
A great fabric for babies can be found here, by scrolling down until you see the “diaper cloth” heading: http://www.wmboothdraper.com/Hemps/hemps_index.htm . It’s hemp but unbelievably soft. It feels like a cross between silk and polar fleece. Yummy!
I don’t use a lot of jersey so I can’t help you there…
August 31st, 2007 at 2:26 am
Fabricmart (referenced in an earlier comment) is great for a variety of garment fabrics at a reasonable price – you have to keep up with their site and/or swatches, as their collection is very fluid. Another place for great values and variety is fashionfabricsclub.com. Other great sites are denverfabrics.com, and fabric.com. There are a lot of sites that specialize in particular items – gorgeous-things.com has a lot of printed knits, fashionistafabrics.com has cute dress fabrics, textilestudiopatterns.com for a variety of nice knits, linens, etc., emmaonesock.com for trendy knits and unique pieces. Both Wazoodle.com and Lucysfabric.com carry organic knits. Nearseanaturals.com carries only organic fabrics but their prices are higher.
There’s a whole work of baby- and child-focused online fabric stores that I’m not that familiar with – sewzannes.com and sewbaby.com are two I do know of.
(If you’re looking for further recommendations, the forums at patternreview.com and Stitcher’s Guild – http://artisanssquare.com/sg/index.php – are great sources.)
August 31st, 2007 at 4:04 am
I don’t about organic cottons, and I’ve only bought fabric for baby clothes once, but purlsoho.com, superbuzzy.com, and reprodepot.com all have fabulous, varied selections, and reprodepot might be particularly good for baby fabrics. I’ve been very happy with everything I’ve bought from all three.
August 31st, 2007 at 8:32 am
Near Sea Naturals ( http://www.nearseanaturals.com/) has a great selection of organic fabrics…you can reqest samplers as well.
August 31st, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I work at a lovely fabric store in St. Paul called Treadle Yard Goods. We do mail orders. We specialize in natural fibers for apparel mostly, although we do carry cottons aplenty for our quilters too. we have a selection of organic cottons and a few nice bamboo pices too.
September 1st, 2007 at 2:24 am
I love our local fabric store, Denver Fabrics. Their online store is at http://www.denverfabrics.com. They have sales at least twice a month, which is nice. The last time i was in the actual store, they now have a selection of organic and “eco” fabrics, including some nice soft organic cotton twill.
September 1st, 2007 at 11:42 am
I have gotten a lot of beautiful fabric through various Fabric Coops on Yahoo Groups. My favorite coop is ClothEssentials- search for it on the Yahoo Groups homepage. The woman that runs most of the coops on this group, Mich, is great and trustworthy and she sources beautiful fabric (organic bamboo and cotton velour and interlock, really nice wool jersey and interlock you won’t see anywhere else, hemp and cotton blends, etc.) Prices on organics are *much* less than online fabric stores- only drawback is often you have to wait a while for your fabric to arrive.
September 2nd, 2007 at 12:51 am
I know you’re not looking for quilting fabric, but thought I would say that Heather Ross’s cotton fabrics are super soft – the softest cotton I’ve come across (I’ve used them for baby clothes). They’re widely available at online shops. One place is here:
http://reprodepot.com/heatherross.html
I’ve also found lots of good jersey knits on Ebay.
Good luck!
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:36 pm
My favorite sites for baby fabics are sewzannes.com sewbaby.com and if you like euro fabrics (I do) i am addicted to banberryplace.com and sewuro.com. The difference in euro fabrics is amazing. It’s like sewing on butter. The price reflects it too.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Well you could give my site a go – you can match fabrics to patterns – quilts and clothes and then purchase the kit online.
Have fun.
Damian :)
September 7th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Thanks all – some good suggestions there, a few I haven’t seen. Damian – I consider fabricmatcher.com to really be a quilter’s site; basically all the fabrics I’ve seen there are the standard printed cottons, and they’re priced by the half-yard instead of the yard. There isn’t even a way to look for fabrics targeted at babies and kids. If I wanted to quilt, it would be great, I’m sure, but I don’t.
Same really with reprodepot and the (many many many) sites that sell cotton prints (and only cotton prints.) Every time I’ve seen one of those cotton prints in person, they’re nowhere near soft enough to use for a baby; rarely would I use them for anything I’d make for me!
Denver Fabrics looks really good – I’ve ordered a bunch of swatches from them thanks to everyone’s recommendations. I’d love to try the euro fabrics but the price difference is enormous – no way I’m going near $18/yard, especially for something that will probably be grown out of in about five minutes :)
Still exploring a lot of the links, and many thanks to all who commented!
katie