I wanted to make a post I could copy and paste and or link when I see folks asking where to buy fabrics when Joann is gone. I sew a lot, generally between 100-200 items a year and I don't do it on a big budget. Stores are not in a particular order.
Notions:
Wawak.com - start here, mostly stay here. Wawak is a supplier for professional sewing businesses and have the prices that show it. I will not pay for gutermann Mara 100 anywhere else. I buy buttons, tools, thread, and most elastic here.
Stitch Love Studio - this is where I buy lingerie supplies https://www.etsy.com/shop/StitchLoveStudio?ref=yr_purchases
Fabric:
Fabric Mart - this is one where you want to sign up for emails and never buy unless its on sale. They run different sales every day and they rotate. Mostly deadstock fabrics but I buy more from here than anywhere else. Fantastic customer service and if you watch you can get things like $6 wool suiting or $4 cotton jersey. https://fabricmartfabrics.com/
Fabrics-Store - again, buy the sales not the full price. Sign up for the emails but redirect them to a folder because it is TOO MANY. They stock linen or good but not amazing quality. https://www.fabrics-store.com/
Purple Seamstress - This is where I buy my solid cotton lycra jersey. They have other things, but the jersey is what I'm here for. Inexpensive and very good quality. If you ask she will mail you a swatch card for the solids. https://purpleseamstressfabric.com/
LA Finch - deadstock fabrics with a fantastic remnant selection https://lafinchfabrics.myshopify.com/
Califabrics - mix of deadstock and big brands, easy to navigate and always seem to have good denim in stock. https://califabrics.com/
Boho Fabrics - good variety, nice bundles. I have also gotten some really great trims from here. https://www.bohofabrics.com/
Firecracker Fabrics - garment and quilting fabrics, really nice selection and great sale section. I've bought $5 yard quilting cottons here several times. https://www.firecrackerfabrics.com/
Hancock's of Paducah - Quilting fabric and some limited garment fabric. AMAZING sale section. Do not sleep on the sale section. This is my first stop when buying quilting fabrics. Usually the last stop too. Not particularly speedy shipping. https://www.hancocks-paducah.com/
Itokri - This is something a little different. Itokri is an Indian business with incredible traditional fabrics. Shipping to the US is expensive, but the fabric is so inexpensive it evens out. I generally end up paying like $30 for shipping. Beautiful ikat and block prints. https://itokri.com/
Miss Matatabi - this is a little treat. This isn't where you go to save money, but there are so many beautiful things in this shop. Ships from Japan incredibly quickly. https://shop.missmatatabi.com/
Lucky Deluxe - Craft thrift store, always has an incredible selection and fantastic customer service. I need to close the tab fast because I never go to this website without finding something I need. https://www.luckydeluxefabrics.com/
Swanson's - the OG of online craft thrift stores, but I find their website harder to navigate. https://www.swansonsfabrics.com
Honorary Mentions: I haven't shopped at these places yet but I have had them recommended and likely will at some point.
A Thrifty Notion - https://athriftynotion.com/
Creative Closeouts - https://creativecloseoutsfabric.com/ being rebranded to sewsnip.com on March 1 - quilting deadstock
Hawthorne Supply Co. - I just got this rec and I think I need to not look too closely or I'm going to slip with my debit card. https://www.hawthornesupplyco.com/
This is not an exhaustive list of everywhere you can buy fabric, or even a full list of where I shop. There are SO many options out there in the world. You also need to think outside the fabric store box. I thrift men's shirt fabrics for quilts and sheets for backing fabric. I don't do a ton of in person thrifting and my local stores don't get a lot of craft materials but every thrift store is its own universe and reflects the community it is in. Go out and find something cool.
RIP Joann's. Now many places in the US no longer have a local fabric store, such as it even was toward the end.
There are some good posts going around about where to shop for fabric and craft supplies online, like this one for example. But if you're a beginner-to-intermediate sewist, and the way you've always shopped for fabric is by going to the store and touching it, it can be a hard, even cruel adjustment to suddenly be looking at a photo online and trying to piece together from the inconsistent descriptions what you're actually looking at.
So I'm going to just try to bang together a little primer on What Things Are Called, and how to educate yourself, so that you don't have to do what I did and just buy a ton of inappropriate stuff you wound up not being able to use for what you'd thought. And I will link to some resources that will help with this. This will be garment-sewing-centric but will, I think, be fairly broadly applicable.
The first thing is to look carefully at your desired project. If it is a commercial pattern, it will usually tell you what kind of fabric you need, but it will describe it in not the same words it's often sold under. If it is NOT a commercial pattern and you're kind of winging it, it's even harder. So here is how to start figuring out what you need.
Number one: Knit or Woven?
Quilting fabric is woven. If you are making a quilt, you want a woven. Most craft projects are made with woven fabric-- tote bags, upholstery, you name it.
Many garments are knits. T-shirts, yoga pants, cardigans. It is easy to know, because knits stretch. They can either stretch both ways (along the length and along the width) or just one way (usually along the width); this is confusingly either called 2-way stretch or 4-way stretch. Yes, stores are inconsistent. Look carefully at the description, and they will usually specify-- "along the grain" or "in all directions". Some garments require stretch only around the body-- maxi skirts, knit dresses etc-- while some absolutely need stretch both ways, like bathing suits.
No, you absolutely cannot clone your favorite knit t-shirt in quilting cotton. It will not fit. Most knit garments have "negative ease", meaning they are smaller than your body and stretch to fit. All woven garments have "positive ease", meaning they are larger than your body, unless very firm shaping undergarments are used.
SMALL EXCEPTION: There exist "stretch wovens", which are woven fabrics made with elastic fibers. These will be labeled as such. They are actually harder to sew with than regular wovens because they almost never have their stretch percentage labeled; they are NOT suitable for knit patterns. Avoid them, until you are more advanced and know how to accomodate them, is my advice!
Number two: WEIGHT.
How heavy is the fabric? How thick? How thin? This is measured in two main ways-- ounces per yard (denim is often 8oz, 10 oz, 12 oz) or grams per square meter. But many fabric retailers do not tell you a weight, they use words like "bottomweight" or "dress-weight", and you have to learn to figure out what they mean by that.
My lifehack for learning these has been go to go to ready-to-wear clothing retailers and see if they give the weights of the fabric their garments are made from. (Yes, I learned how to shop for clothes online instead of in-store years ago, because I am fat; some of us have had to do this a long time.)
If you are making a pair of trousers, you need heavier fabric than if you are making a blouse. Do not buy a floaty translucent chiffon to make your work trousers, it will not work no matter how cute the color is. Learn how the different weights of fabric are described, and you will improve your odds of finding what you need.
Number three: DRAPE.
Is it stiff? Is it fluid? Is it soft? is it firm? There are a lot of very artsy words used for this, and you may find yourself puzzling over things with a fluid hand, or a dry, crisp hand, or "a lot of drape", or maybe the listing doesn't describe it at all. This segues neatly into another technical thing, which is the WEAVE of the fabric. There is a dizzying array of words that tell you what kind of fabric it is-- twill, tabby, challis, chiffon, crepe, organza, georgette. And these will give you insight into the drape, and thus into the texture/usability of this fabric, and how suitable it may or may not be for your project.
I know it's a lot to think about but I am now going to give you resources for where to see all this stuff.
Number one is Mood Fabrics, which I can't believe hasn't been in any of the posts I've seen so far. They are a huge store in NYC's Fashion District and yes you can go there, but when I went there it overwhelmed me so much I left empty-handed. But what they have is AN INCREDIBLE WEBSITE. They have everything on there, and what's most important for you, their listings are INCREDIBLY consistent. They have VIDEOS of many of the fabrics, where a sales associate will hold it, wave it, stretch it, and tell you verbally what it is and what it's for, in about thirty seconds. HUNDREDS of these videos.
Whether you want to buy from them or not, go to Mood Fabrics, click around, find their listings, and read them. They will tell you fabric content, weight (usually gsm), often weave, they have little graphics that show you if it's for pants, dresses, shirts. And they have those videos. Look at the listings, watch the videos, and you will leave knowing a lot more about how to look at an online listing of fabric and know what you're getting.
Another really excellent website for this is Stonemountain & Daughter. I've actually not bought anything from them yet (they came highly recommended, but they're not cheap), but their online listings are, again, very thorough and very detailed. They always have a picture of the fabric with a fold in it held in place by a pin, which does more to help you understand the weight and drape of a fabric than any other static image ever could-- that visual, combined with how informative the listings are, has helped me learn to estimate fabric weights on other sites very effectively.
And here is a page that's ostensibly about how to wash silk, but I found it so useful because it gives such a clear image of what each weave/type of silk fabric looks and drapes like. I've never bought anything from these guys either, but this is a good resource.
Learn a little bit about fabric so you know what you're looking for, and you can begin to replace some of that "i just have to go and feel it in person" problem. There will still be trial and error, but you'll have a better starting place at least.
This weekend I was told a story which, although I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, because holy shit is it ever obvious, is kind of blowing my mind.
A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.
Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic? She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing. But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great. She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success. So - what gives?
His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear. Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles. He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses. You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on. Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered. He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit. That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.
I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way. I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did.
It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this. But no one ever told me. I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes. No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.
I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed. I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to. No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to. I guess I just didn’t know. I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.
I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.
I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.
So, I have to take that and sit with it for a while. But in the meantime, I thought perhaps I should post this, because maybe my friend, her friend, and I are the only clueless people who did not realise this, but maybe we’re not. Maybe some of you have tried to embrace the arbitrary size you are, but still couldn’t find a cute pair of jeans, and didn’t know why.
I love this post but it always frustrated me just a little because I can’t even afford to buy new clothes let alone get the clothes I have tailored. But then I remembered that a lot of things are easier to do than you think they will be, so here’s some resources on how to alter your own clothes!
Do I reblog this every time? Yes. Part of the reason I became kinda-sorta-vaguely proficient at sewing was because NOTHING off-the-rack fits me, no matter what size I’m at.
I live by the motto, “if you can’t buy what you want, make it.” And this motto came to life recently in the form of a floral mosaic dining table for my back deck.
Our deck table had been showing its age already when the wind caught the umbrella and cracked it. I wanted to replace it with a mosaic table because I’d been enjoying that art form recently. But I couldn’t get one the size I wanted so I got creative.
I spent a few weeks looking for tile and figuring out a very loose design concept. I started by picking a limited set of tile shapes and a color palette.
Once the tiles arrived I had a piece of particle board cut to size for the base and I experimented with different motifs until I settled on a selection of floral shapes that gave me plenty of variety to fill space without locking me into one repeating pattern.
And then I was off! I basically doodled my way around the table, attaching tiles with Weld Bond (I went through 4 full bottles!) and rocking out to the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack.
Once the florals were done it was time for the background…
Over 3,800 1cm glass tiles make up the not-design part of the design. It went pretty quickly though because I just had to fill the space, leaving room for grout.
Once I had the tile done, my husband assisted with disassembly and reassembly. We used the legs off the original table for this one (waste not).
One huge bucket of black grout later…
She is finished.
I enjoyed making it and just looking at it makes me so happy - I can’t wait for all the dinners we’ll have around this table 🌼❤️
I’ve been collecting the best Jorts tweets and waiting until the moment he showed up on my dash to post them. So here you are, the curated best of the past, oh, day or so:
An update for those not following Jorts’ twitter account, starting with a transcription of the Wellerman cover:
Link to the lovely video
There once was a ship that put to sea
The name of the ship was the Jorts and Jean
The ship she rolled and her closet doors closed
Oh no, where’s Jorts? Oh no!
Soon may the smarter cat come
To save poor Jorts so orange and dumb
One day when the butterin’s done
We’ll take our leave and go
When Pam came on, she had a plan
To teach our Jorts about garbage cans
Pam meant well but her plans fell flat
When HR said, “don’t butter the cat”
Soon may the smarter cat come
To save poor Jorts so orange and dumb
One day when the butterin’s done
We’ll take our leave and go
Now Jean the smart cat comes
She saves poor Jorts so orange and dumb
Now that the butterin’s done
We’ll take our leave and go
The sheer delight when you finally learn the story of Jorts and Jean, of whom you had only vaguely heard, and what’s more you find SOMEONE YOU KNOW among the Jorts poets
Computers are so scary what if I accidentally hit F12 in a steam game and it takes a screenshot. What if I press shift + F12 while in word and accidentally save my document 😖
If you had to learn what the F keys on your computer do through me reblogging this post, then I'm glad you did. Computer literacy is not a skill that gets taught anymore, and it is absolutely one that needs to be taught in order to be learned. Don't ever feel bad for not knowing something, but ☝️ don't ever stop learning learning about your environment, the tools you use, and especially the people around you
Here are the 2024 vaccine recommendation schedules. They’ve already been wiped from the cdc site. Save them and share widely, especially to your friends with kids.
Lots of posts out there about falling down a Textile Hole where you start doing yarn stuff and then acquire drop spindles and spinning wheels and looms and then start dreaming about having a sheep farm, but that's far from the only kind.
You can also start off sewing and pattern drafting and embroidering and then your vintage sewing machine is acting up so you snag another one for super cheap while that one's being fixed, and then that one also needs fixing and you had a bad and expensive experience with the repairman so you look up youtube videos on how to do it yourself, and then a friend of a relative is decluttering and gives you an antique treadle which mostly just needs a lot of cleaning, and then you find 2 more vintage cast iron machines for dirt cheap at a garage sale and hey how hard could it be to replace a rotten wooden case?
That's where your brain goes, "well I've been knitting/crocheting for a while so I know how putting together a garment works... certainly I can sew one, and certainly I can make a sewing pattern myself, but I'll need a sewing machine and well, i have all this yarn, so what if I make my own fabric, but I'll need a loom, and I want my garments to stay nice so I'll need a serger and oooh someone on Tumblr is doing cool quilts well i could do that and theres so much awesome papercraft, thats like fiber arts and--
SERIOUSLY THOUGH SHE WAS MY FAVORITE BATMAN VILLAIN
Her physical condition didn’t allow her to age
No one took her seriously as an actress
And even when she was trying to get into a happy romantic relationship (albeit with another villain) he still couldn’t take her seriously as a consenting, sexually active and romantically interested adult
That’s a lot of blows to someone’s psyche
and Babydoll is both a sympathetic villain and a formidable one
And man, do I wish we could see this Batman again: the Batman that consoles his villains, because the majority (if not all) of them are mentally ill people. And Batman knows this and wants them healthy again, not punished and GOD definitely not dead.
The Batman that cares about the inmates is my favorite. He doesn’t put up with their shit, but he does try to reach out here and there and he’s as human as he can be to them.
When Harley was re-institutionalized, he got her that dress she wanted.
In the comics based on B:tAS, there was a time during Christmas that there was snow and it was Mr. Freeze’s fault, and he was making it snow because Christmas was his anniversary with Nora and she LOVED it when it snowed on Christmas, so Batman let him finish mourning before calmly taking him back to Arkham.
He never, ever gives up on Harvey possibly recovering.
Sure, Batman is going to throw punches and do what it takes to take these guys down when they’re hurting or threatening people. And he’s not going be a complete bleeding heart; he has to protect the innocent. He’s going to take them down and take them back to Arkham, but it doesn’t mean he’s incapable of being a bit human to the ones who deserve it.
Remember that time a young girl with near god-like psychic powers threatened to destroy reality and the only one that could stop her was Batman because he had a previous encounter with her and was tasked with killing her to restore reality.
But instead, Batman sat with her on a swing and kept her company as the girl’s psychic powers slowly killed her.
It’s ridiculous to think that this isn’t what studios want from our heroes. This is dark and sad without being grim-dark. We need our heroes to be compassionate. There’s enough darkness in the world already. Give us our heroes who care and truly fight for justice.
It’s like they forgot that batman is, at his core, a Noir character.
And what makes Noir a good style, is that the protagonist never gives up and allows themself to wallow in the darkness around them. The world is dark, and bleak, and cold hearted, yes.
But the protagonist fights against that.
Fights for their humanity.
Claws their way out of that muck, and even if the ending is as dour and bleak as the world around them, the Noir Hero shoulders that burden and carries on.
A battered lantern with a flickering light inside them. Refusing to let it burn out.
but really i’m so glad that there’s so many higher quality pictures out there of quark’s outfits because now i get to see every detail of what i call the “grandma couch” jacket
I wonder how this looked like in real life. It seems Quark’s costumes appear way less bright on screen because of the quality issues with DS9. This costume is called ‘Aztec Cherry’ by the way, and we see it being sewn by Garak onscreen in the episode ‘For the Cause’. Here’s ‘Aztec Cherry’ on Quark, behold.
Also apparently all Quark’s costumes have names (it shouldn’t be surprising, but it kind of is?). What do you think about Purple Zebra Striped? Or Cranberry Stripe? (You apparently can never go wrong with stripes if you’re a Ferengi).
More info on the costumes from the guy who now owns them can be found here.
every word out of guillermo del toro’s mouth is the most hardcore thing i’ve ever heard and he says it all so casually like he doesn’t even realize how much of a gothic visionary he is
“Since childhood, I’ve been faithful to monsters. I have been saved and absolved by them, because monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing”
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