Now that our beloved Joanns Fabrics and Crafts has sank and gone to Davy Jones’ locker, I keep seeing people, usually casual crafters, asking “where can I find fabric now?” Granted, most larger towns or cities have at least one quilt shop selling cotton prints, but not everyone is after a cute patterned cotton to make their projects from.
Recently, I’ve seen videos of someone wants to create “the next Joanns” and bring back a national chain of fabric stores so that there is a big box store of various fabric types that anyone can access. But any such businesses must be built up over time, and it will be years before we see anything of the sort–if it happens at all.
Online fabric shopping isn’t easy–you don’t get to touch the fabric to determine if you like the feel of it against your skin; you don’t get to see the color with your own eyes and compare it to the other colors you’re working with directly before buying; and you no longer have the satisfying experience of just browsing through the aisles upon aisles of fabrics on either side of you.
But one of the ways online fabric shops try to alleviate the uncertainty of outright buying yardages of fabric blind, is by selling fabric swatches, often as little as $1 per 3 inch by 3 inch square for you to feel, see the color in person, and coordiante with your other project materials. Their goal is often to give you a swatch directly off their current bulk roll, so that once you buy within the next few weeks, it will be the exact dye lot your swatch was from.
With all of that in mind, here are a few fabric websites that I have (that are still active) from my personal bookmarks:
Fabric Mart Fabrics – Great deals on clearance fabrics. Once I bought wool from here at $3 per yard!
Renaissance Fabrics – A wonderful historical fabric resource. Be prepared to pay real prices–aka, not discount–for these fabrics.
Dharma Trading Co. – A crafters paradise of fabrics to dye yourself. Both fabrics and dyes are available through them!
Fabrics Store – One of the go-to online shops for linen fabrics. Make sure to sign up for their mailing list for coupons.
Silk Baron – The go-to site for all things silk. The color options seem to be never-ending!
Fashion Fabrics Club – Another great discount off-cut fabrics website with some standard listings, too. For the most part, if you love it, buy it, because most likely, next time you check it will be sold out.
Fabric Wholesale Direct – Huge selection of fabrics, with good prices for regular stock fabrics.
On the Go Linens – Lots of fabric options, with a constant 5% off coupon that the code changes each month. I love this place, and they have great customer service.
Vogue Fabrics – Not just fabrics, but notions galore as well.
Nick of Time Textiles – Mostly deadstock fabrics at great deals. Another “buy it now or lose out forever” kind of site.
Mood Fabrics – If you’re a sewist or even into fashion, you already know this place, which means I nearly didn’t link them at all since they’re so well known. But hey, for those who are dabblers, you may not know that you can get their fabrics online.
Scottish Lion – Their main focus is making custom tartan items, but they sell the tartan fabric as well.
Spoonflower – Print on demand fabrics with designer prints.
Do you have a go-to fabric online shop that you love that I missed listing here? Add it in the comments!
