I love shopping for fabrics. Online or offline.
There are advantages and disadvantages of both world, but since I’m going to be talking about online fabric shopping: let’s look at the pros and cons of ONLINE FABRIC SHOPPING:
[This post is a part of the series of online fabric store reviews and spotlights]
[This post contains affiliate links which I may make a small commissions at NO COST to you. This help me run the blog and provide more free information and inspirations. Thank you. You can read full disclosure policy HERE]
Pros : The Good things about online fabric shopping
- Anytime, anywhere. For those with no local quilt shop within close radius of their home -this is definitely the perfect choice.
- Easy to find certain fabrics – just click the search button- most shops have this function
- You can always add to cart, and make decision to buy after few days later.
- Oh, the cart has automatic calculator, which means you can always shop within budget and alter it if it isn’t.
- There’s always good discounts (sometimes, just markdowns, sometimes whole cart sale) that you can use to save more, and you’ll be notified about the sale ( if you subscribed to them).
Cons: The Bad Things about online fabric shopping
- You can be browsing too much -wasting precious time
- There’s too many eye candy that can end up in your cart without you really thinking about your purchase
- Makes those instant shopping way too easy, which you may regret later. (Done that!)
- You can never really know how the fabrics really looks like or the real colour. (I tend to stick with designer fabrics when shopping online to avoid frustrations – never buy those cheap China bundles!)
So you see, done well, Online fabric shopping can bring a lot of benefit just be aware that temptation can also makes it hard to avoid unnecessary spending.
While online shopping has it’s own pros and cons,
I believe that each store is also subjected to their pros and cons.
Therefore, I thought I’d like to start a series of posts, highlighting the best of each online store that I’ve bought and have visited before.
Of course, this series isn’t going to have a timeframe, it is just something that I’d like to review on and let other knows what are the advantages of each store in case you’re new to online fabric shopping.
Today in this post, I would like to spotlight on a shop that I have bought from and loved in the past before I met other fabric shops (oops – not so loyal here, but I still do love them and buy from them from time to time for several unique reasons.
Today’s store is FABRIC.COM
Have you been?
Here are the things I love about this shop:
- Not limited to quilting fabrics. If you sew more than just quilts, you’ll love the selection of fabrics available at this shop. I used to sew garments and I love the knit selection available HERE. Besides the knits, I also love the outdoor and home decor fabrics. These fabrics also make suitable material for bags and pillow covers.
- I love the fact that I can also use the design wall. Especially when choosing quilting fabrics. Simply add the fabric you might want to buy on the design wall, all have a look at them again before purchasing. It gives you an overall look. It is also great if you are picking fabrics to match. [read more about mix and matching fabrics for a quilt HERE>]
- Liberty of London FABRICS!!! I love liberty fabrics. Though you have to buy a yard minimum HERE, they do have wide selection and sometimes 50% OFF! So, definitely check it out >>
- There’s also a wide selection of interfacing, making it a one stop centre.
- I bought some yarns too before at the shop (red heart & lily sugar and cream), so it is definitely a great one stop. If you love crocheting or knitting – you’ll want to check out their yarns selections too.
- Children’s and Novelties ! I am not a fan of those in my stash, BUT, if I am looking for children’s fabric or novelties for fussy cutting, this store has plenty of those. They also have tons of other non-quilting ones that suits children’s items such as fleece and knits.
In the last few years, they sort of change the way fabrics are sold – most of the fabrics has to be bought at least more than 3 yards. They are transitioning to bulk buying and are currently encouraging those small businesses with craft or reselling to buy from them with special discounts.
However, recently they’ve lowered that to a minimum purchase of 1 yd. Which makes it a little bit okay for me as I normally buy small yardage.
Anyway,
If you are thinking of having a craft or handmade business, buying more and saving more is definitely a great choice for you.
You can get a 20% discount for your first purchase by registering your business HERE>
The things that I don’t like so much about the shop:
Too many varieties and choices. Too many to choose from their selections including varieties of different fabrics.
YES, too many choices can be good and bad at the same time.
They are not catering for a specific taste, therefore it can be quite exhausting going through their selections.
I can get lost and waste time searching for the things and deals I want. Especially, if I am just looking at quilting fabrics that are not novelties.
But, I still do check their deals often – buy simply looking at quilting fabrics on sale. They do have great deals and designer quilting cotton can be on sale too.
HERE is the link that will you bring you straight to QUILTING COTTON ON SALE.
Just so you don’t have to go through all the trouble looking around their massive shop if you are specifically looking for quilting cottons.
They do have lots of Quilting Cottons – a massive selections.
But as I mentioned earlier, you could be browsing many novelty fabrics too.
If you do have specific designers or Brands you love, it will make the browsing more tuned in for you. Like me, I like:
– Amy Butler, Tula Pinks, Anna Maria Horner and Kaffe Fasset are some of my favourite designer, and theres a good selection HERE.
– Click HERE to get through to some of the ones that you’ve even missed at other shops.
Batiks and special prints like the Hoffman Dream Big Panel for practicing free motion quilting
I find that normally I would buy yards and yards of solids. They are normally the background the quilt, so it’s great that you can get extra discount for buying more HERE.
Lots of Kona cottons (solid fabrics in various colours) and even their colour card is available HERE.
Well, I guess that is it for today’s spotlight.
I’ll have more shops reviewed and talked about here on the blog following this series. If you have a specific shop for me to try out or a suggestion, let me know in the comment and I’ll try it out.
