The Sewing Diaries: How to Buy Fabrics Online
Sewing has become one of my favorite pastimes, however, the part I haven't really loved about sewing is the search for fabrics. Especially since I love beautiful patterns on my clothes and it is almost impossible to know if I will find what I'm particularly looking for in a specific fabric store. So I have to go around Miami looking for the perfect fabric and now that I'm having a baby I know I won't have the time to do that. Therefore I started looking for great online fabric stores, however, the problem with online stores was that I couldn't touch the fabrics to know exactly what the fabric felt like, that is until I found out about ordering fabric swatches.
Fabric swatches or samples are just that, samples of fabrics that you can order online for $1 or less, depending on the fabric store. One of my favorite online fabric stores is Mood Fabrics. You might remember Mood Fabrics from the show Project Runway. I have to say that their online store has some of the best patterns and a vast variety of fabric types. And one of the greatest things that they have is the option to order fabric swatches from every fabric they sell.
This is especially helpful to someone who is a beginner sewer, like myself, and I don't know exactly what each fabric type feels like. Also a great advantage of receiving a swatch is that you also can see what the fabric pattern looks like in person, because at times that online picture might deceive you and you end up ordering yards of a fabric that looked great online but not so much in person. That has happened to me and it's the worse feeling ever.
One of the reasons I also started ordering fabric swatches was so I could learn what each fabric type felt like, and so every time I order a swatch I write down in pen what each fabric type was, as shown on the photo above, so when I was looking to make something I would know exactly what the name of the fabric is and what that fabric feels like. If it's flowy, heavy, stretchy, delicate, etc. and that saves time and money when looking for the right fabric.
Another great and helpful thing that Mood Fabric Store offers is that when you make any order, swatches included, for every $10 you spend you can order a new swatch for free! That feature has been so helpful, money saving and helps me order all different types of fabric swatches so I can get to know and add to my fabric swatch folder for future orders.
I hope this post was helpful for ordering fabrics online, keep in mind that most online fabric stores have the option to order swatches or samples so make sure that if you don't see the option right away you ask. :) Happy sewing.