Thursday, May 12, 2011

Fabric shopping...

Alright. So in case you guys don't know, I live in a pretty small town, that although beautiful in so many ways, lacks in the funky fabric department (read: wolf howling at moon and fish jumping). There is one local online fabric store from a nearby town (which is awesome: Fishskin fabrics - have I mentioned she's a former fisheries biologist who has taken on this new career...hint hint...any one of us can quit science at any time to make beautiful things fulltime...well - in theory!), but so far she hasn't been stocking a lot of the fabrics I'm into.

Basically, wedding season is about to begin, I have a new niece and a home to make things for, so I need some fabric shopping advice that won't put me in the poor house. To date, I've ordered from Sew Mama Sew, Hawthorne Threads and the Purl Bee, depending on who's got a sale on or who on any given day, for whatever reason stocks the exact same fabric, at a totally different price from the other sites!!!! wtf my friends. That's right...wtf - I said it.

Here's my questions to you:

1. Where do you most often buy your fabric online?
2. Have you found any one site that consistently has better prices?
3. What about shipping?...they all seem to vary in how much they charge to ship to the great white north
4. Are there any awesome sites I'm missing out on?

Many thanks in advance for helping me out with this hugely important, internationally significant issue.

a.

6 comments:

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  2. Hey Alana,

    I just made my first online fabric order in April and I ordered from Wonderous Woven Fabrics. Mostly because they had the entire line I wanted in stock (I'm too lazy to place multiple orders from multiple stores) and the prices were comparable to other online stores. I think it is just a lady out of her house in Seattle. She shipped my order within 2 days of me placing it and the shipping costs were based on the price of the order. The order did get held up in customs in Vancouver for a week, but I am not sure if that is normal, or because it was around the Easter weekend. Anyway, I was happy with the product I received and the ease of the ordering. I have nothing to compare this to, but I would order from them again.

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  3. Sweet - i just checked that site out. Some of the stuff she has on sale is awesome and a really good price...this site has been added to my list.

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  4. Hey Alana, I have ordered from Fabricworm a couple of times. One nice thing about them is they always put your order as $20 for international shipping. It is great to not be charged importation.

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  5. i like it Sascha! I really like the lay-out of the site, and the set-up of the sale fabric. It's easy to see and quickly skim through...I like that. I hate having to click through pages, then i forget what i've seen etc. This will be added to my go-to list as well!

    mucho gracias ladies!

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  6. Hey Alana!

    I follow 'True Up' every week - she posts all the sales on her site every Friday (http://www.trueup.net/category/sale-alerts/), and there are plenty! I should really stop checking so often because I'm tempted EVERY Friday to put in a new order!

    I've bought from a whole range of suppliers: FabricWorm has awesome bundles if you are just looking for specific colours, and I've also ordered from QuiltHome, Pink Panda fabrics, and a few others that don't come to mind right away. I've never had issues with my order (apart from Buttercuppity, but she's closed now). I always aim to buy from a supplier with set shipping costs for larger amounts(for example. $11 for 8 yards), which means that they have to have a number of fabrics that I want to buy.

    Good luck!!!!

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