In a letter to vendors today, Fabric.com announced that it will be shutting down. The company, which is owned by Amazon, said it alerted employees to news on Monday.
Fabric.com was originally the website of Phoenix Textile Group, a company founded in 1993 as a wholesale distributor of apparel fabrics. Phoenix Textiles launched the website in 1999 in order to experiment with selling yardage directly to consumers online. Amazon acquired Fabric.com in 2008 in an effort to expand its inventory of craft and hobby materials. Fabric.com was one of a suite of freestanding websites acquired by Amazon that also included Audible and Zappos.
“We have been selling to them since 1996,” said Andy Weinstock, President and CEO of Edley Fabrics. “We wish their employees continued success. It will be interesting to see if anyone or any company steps up to fill the void.” Weinstock surmised that the labor costs involved in cutting fabrics were too high for Amazon’s current business model.
For many fabric companies, Fabric.com was the industry’s largest buyer.
Over the last few years, though, difficulties had begun to surface. Weinstock said Fabric.com had been paying vendors late. Another fabric company executive we spoke with also said that Fabric.com’s payments to vendors had been slow over the last few years. About six months ago, Amazon reached out to Fabric.com vendors to say that all fabric would soon need to be sold directly on Amazon.com. Vendors were told to upload all of their products to Amazon in one, three, or five-yard increments, seemingly with no regard to the fact that fabric manufacturers sell wholesale by the roll or bolt, and not by the yard. “They expect us to cut and ship overnight for free,” this executive said. “They don’t understand fabric at all.” The longtime former employee we spoke with said that over the last few years, management repeatedly asked if selling pre-packed cuts would work. They said no.
“I think the exit of Fabric.com in this market will ultimately open up opportunities for more business for independent quilt shops, as well as an opportunity for new shops to open,” said Gina Pantastico, Co-founder and Director of Operations at Cloud9 Fabrics and Felicity Fabrics.
“This will be an adjustment for fabric manufacturers, but once we all get over our initial shock and surprise I think this could be a positive change for the fabric industry as a whole,” Pantastico said.
Fabric.com will close down on October 20. Employees have been offered a severance package or the opportunity to seek employment in another Amazon division. Fabric.com is headquartered in Kennesaw, Georgia.
This article was updated with the closure date of Fabric.com.
Abby Glassenberg
Co-founder
Abby co-founded Craft Industry Alliance and now serves as its president. She’s a sewing pattern designer, teacher, and journalist. She’s dedicated to creating an outstanding trade association for the crafts industry. Abby lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Amazon has ruined another company. Buying fabric by the yard is the only way to buy it!! I’ve 70 and been buying fabric since I was a child. Makes me sick that another company’s going down due to big business.
You are right about Amazon ruining companies. They are so cutthroat.
Agreed, 1, 3, and 5 yard precuts alone will not do. A lot of things take 1 5/8 yards, or 3 1/2, etc. There is a reason fabric has traditionally been sold by the yard.
I do not buy precuts at Walmart and I will not buy precuts at Amazon.
This is so sad. Such a wonderful company with awesome fabrics.
loved fabric.com
shutelane.com is a great little online shop. They sell 6in squares for quilting and other crafty projects. Perfect if you don’t want to buy a yard – most of which might not get used.
Same. I Hate the pre cuts and refuse to use them.
I loved doing business with Fabric.Com.
Easy access and wonderful fast service to Canada.
Will miss doing online business with them.
Had so many options with them.
One stop shop.
I will miss fabric.com too. Other fabric stores like onlinefabricstore.com, fashionfabricsclub.com, & stonemountain&daughter are very good online fabric stores. I’ve also had great experiences buying fabric on etsy.com.
Yes Pamela Stump, now I see what the fabric looks like on amazon and it is a jumbled up mess of everything mixed together. I doubt they are having much success selling fabric this way. But I realize they are just apparently trying to sell through what they have. I am lost now as to where to shop for fabric. I tried Nick of Time.com. I did buy some denim but I don’t like their website. No information on fabric like there was on fab.com. Just nothing like it. I am at a loss as to where to go now. What a mess.
I am saddened by this store closing and mad as hell that Amazon is shutting it down, like they don’t get enough money from other avenues. I shop at Amazon quite frequently, and the millions of others across the world should keep them with a steady income, leave the fabric companies alone. I am a fashion designer that needs fabrics for my customers and getting Fabric.com fabrics makes my searches much easier. This sucks big time! Amazon needs to rethink this closure for all of the seamstresses across the world.
Hi
It is tragic but what happened to all the fabrics I had a stash in my cart of about 50 different fabrics which I kept meaning to buy – for various clothes – I sew for lots of people – about $4000 worth – the amazon site doesn’t have any of it! Hope we all find new sources
I do not buy anything from Amazon. They only (he only) thinks of himself and has no regard for anyone or anything else. I have bought a lot of fabric from Fabric.com over the years, and I live in Australia. It had more of a selection than any of the brick and mortar shops that we have here. Shirt fabrics were wonderful. What a shame such a self-centered person with only the quest of the dollar could make a mess of such a wonderful shop.
Just to be clear, Fabric.com was bought by Amazon in 2008.
And Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon in 2021.
People need to not buy fabric from Amazon.com in a way of protecting after all they have enough money from all their other companies.
2nd reply: everyone keeps talking about quilting fabric. Very little I buy is quilting fabric. Clothing like knits, a lot of minky, home decor. I don’t know where I’m going to buy anything anymore. Joann fabrics has a lot of seconds that they sell for a premium price. Even their baby flannels are printed off grain. Just about impossible to get a straight design on cutting it for blankets!! Fabric.com has always had excellent people that are so helpful and would go out of their way to help over the phone. I’m really going to miss them.
Try Mood Fabrics or B & J Fabrics in NYC. I’ve shopped both of them on line and in person and would use them again. Both also send samples for a small charge.
Emmaonesock.com and Blackbird, Stone Mountain &Daughter, Marcy Tilton and Silhouette Patterns are all quality vendors…and Stylemaker Fabrics and The Confident Stitch. All indies.
I’m not familiar with B and J, but Mood fabrics are very expensive. Not even close to a substitute for fabric.com.
Agreed that Amazon doesn’t understand this business…. We don’t need precut bundles…. This is an outstandingly wasteful idea and so much potential waste will be generated…. This is an environmental mess
Thanks for listing these indie fabric sellers, there were a couple I had not heard of!
The online store Fabric Mart is great and they constantly have deep-discount sales on various categories. I got on their mailing list to get notifications. Mood Fabrics is pricey but they have lots of good free patterns, and I occasionally buy fabric there. Stonemountain and Daughter fabrics is a good site, not discount but a lovely selection.
I also recommend the online store Wawak Sewing Supplies for every kind of notion. I buy all my thread there. Their Gutermann Mara 100 thread chart is pricey but absolutely worth it for matching colors. (Mara 100 is Gutermann’s all-purpose sewing thread.)
Mood fabric is wayyyy too pricey. One yard of toile fabric at Fabric. Com runs you roughly $16.00 give or take depending on the designer. While that same fabric at Moods will cost you $30.00 or more for just one yard.
http://hawthornesupplyco.com/ Is one of my favorites. Stylemakerfabrics.com. I’m going to miss the great prices on Sunbrella!
Mood Fabrics is a wonderful place but the cost of their fabrics is too high. Coming from Oklahoma, it’s out of our price bracket.
Same. I sew garments, historical clothing and costumes. I barely ever use quilt fabric for anything.
JoAnns apparel fabric collection is terrible in both quality and quantity. They never sell fabric widths that go along with patterns and half an inch of the fabric is taken up by them printing their logo down the sides.
There are lots of online fabric stores. Knitfabrics.com, mood fabrics, raspberry creek fabrics, so sew english fabrics, sincerely rylee fabrics, wolf and rabbit, fabricwholesaledirect, bytheyard.fabricselection.com, and more. I have a shop so I buy fabrics wholesale. I rarely shopped fabric.com simply because they were always out of what I needed.
Yes, this 100%!!! Joann’s has cheap apparel fabric that is way overpriced. I have no idea where I’ll get the garment-sewing fabric that I need. This is so disappointing.
I’m with you on JoAnn Fabric. It’s over priced and they are going to craft fabrics and not so much fashion designer fabrics. They have no variety and they don’t even keep what they stocked. Thumbs down on the J store
try denverfabrics.com. I’ve been shopping online there for years!
Tons of fabric for garments. They let you order in .25 increments. They have bolts and remnants.
Great fabric store for everyone. Not just garments.
I’ve ordered quilting and upholstery fabric too.
No complaints
@Sheila Albert – Another place to look is All About Fabrics (allaboutfabrics.com). They are a wholesaler that sells to the public online. They also open their doors to the public the first Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of the month – great if you live in North and South Carolina or want to take a road trip. You can also order samples.
Well darn, I’ve shopped at Fabric.com pre 2006. Such great customer service. I bought cotton fabric for quilts. I won’t be buying precuts on Amazon. Check out funfabrics.com for cotton fabrics. Decent family owned business out of the PNW.
Good specialty fabric stores include fabrics-store.com, which carries reasonably priced linens in many colors and weights. Silk Baron, which carries silks, but they are especially good for dupioni and taffeta. Dharma Trading, which carries a good selection of dyeable white fabrics and the dyes to use on them. You can get swatch books before you buy. Renaissance Fabrics specializes in fabrics for historical reenactors, mostly Renaissance into the Regency era. And then there are many Etsy sellers. If you want a good quality eyelet or embroidered cotton, the Indian and Chinese Etsy sellers usually have better prices than US fabric stores.
Thanks so much for this list. I teach crazy quilting for the Embroiderers’ Guild of America and have created high quality kits of dupioni silk , mostly sourced from Fabric.com for many years. Their wide selection, great quality, reasonable pricing and terrific staff made my life so much easier. I will miss them so much. D*mn Amazon🤬😡😠
Fabric mart Pennsylvania is my new go to shop for discount but quality fabrics. Mood is great for the fancy stuff, but fabric mart fills the void of fabric.com nicely. They have regular sales and fast shipping, too. Hopefully, other shops will get a chance to shine now. JoAnns isn’t it for quality or price. I miss Hancock’s fabrics. Now maybe one of the smaller shops will be able to expand or franchise to serve local customers across a region.
I will also miss Fabric.com.
QUILT cottons: I think there are a lot of places for quilting fabric. (although I will miss Fabric,con 108″ wide fabric selection for quilt backs
DECOR Fabric : I like Sailrite http://www.sailrite.com and Online fabric http://www.onlinefabricstore.com.
DISCOUNT Fabric: http://www.fabricdirect.com
Anita, try https://backsidefabrics.com/ for wide quilt backs. Great selection and reasonable prices!
I was surprised Fabric.com is owned by Amazon. Let’s support local fabric stores.
Traditional fabrics are less to find these days. Check out
https://classicmodernfabrics.com/
https://www.fabricdirect.com/
I so totally agree with you. I do buy quilting fabric but more apparel like knits, flannels and multiple others. Joanne’s has become rubbish over the years with their brands! Loved Fabric.com
https://www.fabricwholesaledirect.com/
https://zelouffabrics.com/
Raspberry Creek Fabrics is an apparel knit source and digital printer, check them out!
If you’re up for it – harvesting beautiful and basic fabric from clothes on sale racks and in thrift shops keeps it out of landfills.
i’ve been buying from canvasetc.com they are based in Georgia as well. Not as large as Amazon but they have the basics
fabric.com WAS the big business.
Amazon is asking the companies to sell 1,3, or 5 yard cuts and they are saying no. Buying by the yard is absolutely how most people buy fabric. These companies screwed themselves by trying to sell fabric by the bolt to save themselves time and money. Amazon didn’t ruin them; it asked them to provide fabric the way customer buy fabric.
Amazon wants them to precut the fabric in 1,3,5 yard increments and basically bundle and sell as precuts. I would buy Shannon Fabrics Cuddle fabric 2 yard cuts for blankets. If I buy the precut, I’ll have to buy 3 yards, etc. It’s just more inconvenience for the buyer. 30 year old company and Amazon just shut them down! Why didn’t they at least try to sell them? I had a business account and now that’s gone. Currently, none of the Shannon Fabric is available on Amazon except through a 3rd Party Seller who’s charging at least $3-$4 more per yard.
Not true, rarely will a pattern call for 1,3 or 5 yard precuts. If your making clothing, and judging by the many comments on here, there are till many many people who buy specific amounts such as 1.1/2 or 2 or 2 1/2 etc pieces of fabric. we aren’t all making blankets and quilts. And yes Amazon has a history of doing what it needs to do to kill any and all competitors by way of undercutting them or buying them and shutting them down. It has been reported many time in the WSJ. Not made up chatter. It is a FACT.
For quality knit fabrics with volume discounts available on the roll and the bolt check out girlcharlee.com. Free shipping over $99 and low flat rate shipping. Also a great selection of indie sewing patterns! Get on their email list for discounts and sales promotions as they have good ones throughout the year.
Extremely disappointed they closed their doors. For the past 5 years, this was the only placed I purchased fabric. I have spent $100s of dollars to make my appliqued quilts.
This is a travesty. I don’t understand why Amazon purchased Fabrics.com. It is not in their wheelhouse, especially when they think of selling 1, 3 or 5 yard pieces. What a waste of fabric!! Thank you to everyone who mentioned alternatives for purchasing fabric. I have been sewing for 70 years and miss browsing through a real fabric store and feeling the “hand” of the fabric. Fabrics.com was my go to place for years, as brick and mortar fabric stores close, and Joanne Fabrics has such cheap quality fabrics – not worth the time to sew on.
Truth
Good to know! Thanks for the info.
I sure hate to hear this. It is all about move it, move it, move it. So sad.
http://www.equilter.com
Best fabric store ever!
I really liked the he quality of fabrics at Fabric.com !!!!! It will be missed !!!! Can they sell locally ?
Fabric.com just sold the same fabrics that the independent quilt shops sold.. Check out QuiltedTWins.com, which has over 12,000 bolts! You can find a lot of what they had for less.
Thanks so much for your kind words about us at eQuilter.com
What I’d love eQuilter.com to do is say how many yards of a fabric you have left in stock, instead of letting me place an order and then find out you don’t have enough of it. I have usually avoided buying from eQuilter for this reason only. I’d rather know right away whether I have to shop elsewhere to get the quantity I need. Lovely selection, though.
Hello Frances and thank you for your comment.
Please be aware that our inventory is tracked in Real Time, so our system will only allow you to order as much as we have entered in our online inventory system. Of course there may be an occasion where our online inventory may be just a touch off, due to discrepancies with supply, cutting, etc, however the vast majority of the time, our online inventory matches very closely and orders go out without issue. We are also constantly verifying our inventory, to minimize such issues.
Also note that our system will alert you when the inventory of any product is less than 4 yards, so you can indeed see when a product is low on inventory.
Our customer service folks are also ready to help at any time, so please feel free to reach out to them by email at service@equilter.com for any questions.
Thanks! With the automatic menu asking if I want you to notify me if there was not enough stock, I assumed I’d have to place an order, wait, and then find out in a later email that I could not get what I wanted. I’ll have another look because I have loved some of the fabrics on your site.
Thanks again Frances, please do feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
Yes, they have excellent quality and will cut what you need.
Try quiltsngifts.net over 5,000 bolts for fabric and you can get from 1/4 yd minimum cut to how many yards you need.
Orders of $50.00 or more are free shipping in the continental USA.
Great and quick service
I’m sure that’s great for quilters, but that’s a quilt store, not a fabric store. Those are two very different things for those of us younger seamstresses who sew garments.
As an elderly experienced sewer (who never makes quilts!), one thing I learned early on was that you don’t have to use fabrics according to the marketing labels. You can use “quilting” and “home-dec” fabrics for clothing. You can line garments with fabrics not labeled as linings. In fact, “lining” fabrics are often not all that great quality, so you may be better off with another fabric. There are some rules. For example, home-dec fabrics can have motifs too large to look good on a human body, but some don’t. Or they may be too stiff for anything but a coat–I stick with drapery rather than upholstery fabrics.
With quilting fabrics, you need to avoid Etsy sellers that will only sell by the quarter yard, because the half yard they may have in stock may be useless for garments. But some will also sell whole yards and have a reasonable stock. Basically, all “quilting” fabric is, is printed cotton that is easy to work with and reasonably priced, which are not bad things. And for me, a fitting muslin fabric is usually a piece of cotton I bought on sale and later regretted, or a remnant from a former project. You don’t have to use all the same fabric for one muslin, but it should be the same type and weight of fabric. Quilting cotton remnants work fine for muslins.
I too am very sad about the closing of Fabric.com and I have ordered from Amazon only to have the package lost or arriving way past the due date. As a seamstress I mostly look for silky and statin and a nice wool blends. I have in past used “quilters fabric ” to make a lot of summer dress since where I am located it hot for most of the time. I will like to thanks all the others for the advice for other online store however does anyone know who has eyelet?
Someone replied that you can make garments from quilt fabrics and that’s true, but a lot depends on the weight and hand of the individual fabric. The majority of quilting cotton just isn’t supple enough for garment use.
(@Heidimarie, please watch it with the ageism there. A lot of us older sewists grew up designing and sewing our wardrobes. We didn’t lose our style and taste just because decent garment fabrics got harder to find.)
Not disappointed! As someone who has worked for and supports small independent quilt shops, this loss of unfair competition is welcomed.
Totally agree. Amazon’s selling policies ruins everything for small retailers.
This can only be good!
Amazon as we all know has bad practices overall. With other businesses, mistreatment of employees and involved in so many things–including owning AWS, which is integrated inside the military, FBI, CIA, Fire Departments, police departments and universities. Across the board. Putting all your eggs in one basket is bad so why has someone given a company so much power? Do the math? And there is your answer. Does it make sense that a frugal person at one time would waste money on a supposed space project that goes up 60 miles and breaks out the champagne? If money buys anything and if countries have already made it up to space then why is Amazon or those other guys so amazed at hitting the 60 mark when they could easily buy a team like they buy everything and everyone else and get people who already have studied or have sent space ships to space? None of this makes sense. Just companies messing around with people’s livehoods.
The problem is that Fabric.com didn’t just serve the quilting community. People who sew garments, bags, home accessories, etc all sourced from there. I know of no quilt shop alive that’ll sell me waterproof canvas or buckram. And if they do, their price point would be where I couldn’t buy it and still make a profit on the project. Because they won’t have the clout to negotiate. I’m happy for the small businesses who will benefit from this, for sure. At the same time, there are other small businesses who will suffer quite a bit from losing another reasonably priced vendor.
A part of me feels like this misrepresents quilt shop fabric. I work for quiltedtwins.com and one of my jobs is to scour other quilt shops’ websites (with their permission) to download and get design patterns for handbags, table runners, and other non-quilts that we can use to help sell our quilt panel fabrics (we have a TON of panels–too many panels). Sure, our panels are not apparel fabric, but they certainly can fill other roles than quilt fodder.
Here’s what we’ve got so far (patternwise): https://www.quiltedtwins.com/shop/Patterns/Manufacturers-FREE-Patterns.htm
Notice the pillowcases and handbags that use quilt fabric, but aren’t quilts.
Here are our panels that can go with them: https://www.quiltedtwins.com/shop/Precuts/Quilt-Panels-QP.htm
I totally agree here. I do quilt but the majority of my sewing is clothing . It is getting harder and harder to find good quality, pretty, decently priced clothing fabric.
Unfortunately you are very narrow-minded when it comes to who sews and what fabrics they need. The younger generation of sewists are not quilting. We are sewing garments from indy pattern companies. Local quilt shops are great, but they don’t sell high-end garment fabrics with tens of thousands of choices.
Why the age dig? All older sewers are not making quilts, and younger sewists are not all sewing garments. My 12 year old just finished her first quilt, embroidered, and beautiful. Yet she designs and sews her own clothes. As do I.
I’m one of those older sewists. I often use “quilting” fabric for cottageclore clothing and for Victorian reenactment clothing. And Fabric.com carries many fabrics that are not traditionally for quilting–velvets, brocades, corduroys, and woolens. I’ll be sorry to see them go.
Precut yardage is a silly idea. The only people I have ever known to buy it (who posted on sewing groups) were people who lived in the back end of nowhere and Walmart’s was the *only* accessible brick-and-mortar store that old fabric. They bought Walmart’s precut yardage and complained endlessly about that policy.
Younger generation here and I have been quilting up a storm! I have oodles of patterns just waiting for when I have time to quilt some more and I’m so excited for it.
Your comment was just as narrow minded as what you were accusing the previous poster of. All types of fabric and shops are needed – full stop. Certain ages don’t only sew certain things; how boring would that be?!
There is no such thing as “unfair competition” in a free market — it’s just competition, and a lot of smaller shops lose the game because the consumer will naturally go where the prices are lowest. It’s that simple. Fabric.com had great prices and a great selection of EVERY type of fabric, not simply “quilt cottons” that many are not even interested in.
Quilt shops and independent shops can be more attractive in other ways, such as offering expertise or classes, etc., but many aren’t looking for those extras. We just want a good price on fabric so our hobby isn’t too expensive. Hence why many of us lament the closing of fabric.com.
We live in an area with no independent quilt shops either large or small, so the ability to purchase quality 100% cotton quilting fabric from fabric.com is very important to us.
We are sooooo disappointed that Amazon has closed down the opportunity for us to find and purchase the fabric we need.
Hi Betty, we at http://www.equilter.com have been serving quilters and crafters in remote areas and in areas without local quilt shops for many years. Please feel free to reach out at any time.
Amazon should have sold the company instead of destroying what it couldn’t bend to its own business model. Years ago the Walmart fiasco proved that selling only precuts will fail in a very short time. Most people don’t want to buy the amount of fabric you choose, they want to buy the amount that they choose.
iN THE LAST YEAR fABRIC.cOM HAS INCREASED PRICES DRAMATICALLY. i, FOR ONE, STOPPED BUYING FROM THEM ALMOST A YEAR AGO.tHERE ARE OTHER SITES ONLINE THAT SELL FABRIC THAT SIP FASTER AND CHARGE LESS. ONE JUST NEEDS TO LOOK AROUND.
Agreed.
I totally agree. They could have just sold the company lock stock and barrel. It could have stayed up and running. However, I suspect they thought they would make more money by selling out the fabric piece by piece, I doubt this will be the case. It looks like a pile of mixed up mess now. I just looked on there and searched for a specific fabric type and instead of showing that particular fabric type, it showed a mixed up combination of fabric that weren’t in any way related to what I searched for. I am guessing others will be as disgusted as I am. I for one won’t be buying from them. No Idea where I will look though.
iN THE LAST YEAR fABRIC.cOM HAS INCREASED PRICES DRAMATICALLY. i, FOR ONE, STOPPED BUYING FROM THEM ALMOST A YEAR AGO.tHERE ARE OTHER SITES ONLINE THAT SELL FABRIC THAT SIP FASTER AND CHARGE LESS. ONE JUST NEEDS TO LOOK AROUND.
Thank you for another warning to purchase as little as possible from Amazon. They rarely have the best price, their primiary appeal is convenience for those of us who need everything now, wait until the last minute or are too lazy to leave the house and purchase items. Wow. That’s all I can say. I have purchased several times a year from Fabric.com and have always been satisfied. So sad.
Amazon bought them in 2008, anything you bought after that you’ve bought from Amazon. Also, its not just lazy last minute shoppers that shop on Amazon. There are also vast more options, especially for people who don’t have many local options.
Just a different perspective.
Agree. I live where there used to be one fabric shop 60 miles away. Now even they are gone and a Domino Pizza place occupies that building. Only other place is a scant amount of fabric at a small Walmart. So my only option is shop on line or drive over 100 miles north or south. Fabric.com was my go to for any kind of fabric, Home decor, or clothing.
You can’t even get it NOW with membership. Usually takes 2 days.. sheesh!!!
Try califabrics.com. Great family owned online fabric store. Lots of knits.
Buying fabric on line has always been a challenge. And we continue to loose fabric shops that carry garment fabrics. With Joann being the only large store stocking apparel fabrics this is going to cause a poor selection of outlets. We need someone to fill this void. I live quilt shops and are so happy that they have maintained the fabric industry. As a formal Hancock employee and 40+ year in the creative retail industry I am always sad when another source disappears
For anyone looking for a better way to find good garment fabric (and other materials for garment making) online, I’m creating a new marketplace for garment sewing that will make it easy for you to see the offerings of sewing shops and businesses from all over the US.
You won’t have to visit a bunch of different websites to find what you are looking for – and there are going to be some fun tools to help you plan your projects and find materials that will work together easily. I’m hoping people who sew garments will love it, and that it will really help independent shops and sellers.
We are launching before the end this year (fingers crossed!) if you want to hear about the launch, please sign up to get notified – it would make my DAY to see a few names on my spanking new database at Prettesewing.com
dottylevine82@yahoo.com
Thank you – I just signed up to Prettesewing!
Kay in Los Angeles
It will give the small shops a chance now- they charged so little the smaller places couldn’t compete. I buy only garment fabric from online shops like Nature’s Fabrics, Fabric Fairy etc
Try LindaZs Sewing Center. They have over 10,000 bolts of fabric. Privately owned for more than 55 years. Daughters, Debbie & Tracy have great preview of fabrics on their Facebook live every Wednesday st lunch. They also have great tutorials every Thursdays.
Another excellent on-line fabric store, and brick and mortar store in Missoula, Montana, is The Confident Stitch. Great customer service. They also have videos on YouTube.
Thank you for mentioning this. I’ve moved away from Missoula, but I’d love to support a local business in a wonderful town.
Shop with us. You can buy ANY increment and we ship within 24 hours (Unless closed for vacation which would be noted on homepage). http://www.QuiltersObsession.com All TOP quality fabric–no junk here–at great prices and real customer service!
Do you sell high-quality apparel fabric?
While I am all for supporting our local quilt shops and those who posted that here, what about us garment sewists? We are in a fabric desert. Oh, to have a store filled with meltons and corduroys and batistes and more and to be able to walk to a mirror and drape them around my body————–sigh………………There are millions of yards of quilting cottons out there to be sewn. Quality garments use garment fabrics.
Yes! Thank you! All these commenters griping about local quilting shops; I’ve been sewing for over 30 years and have never quilted a single thing in my entire life! I sew garments almost exclusively, and fabric.com had the best selection and easiest to use website BY FAR. No local quilt shop can replace that.
Gone are the days of mega fabric stores like Fabric Depot in Portland, OR. They had everything, and lots of mirrors. They also had great “drop in” classes led by Palmer Pletsch instructors. Sewing is not a dying art. In fact, I believe it’s back even stronger than before due to covid shutting everything down.
I SO miss Fabric Depot!
Check out “Fairy Week” and “Little Fabric Shop” . Both are in Canada. Beautiful fabrics for sewing clothing and you get a real deal because the USA dollar is worth so much more. There are other similar shops on etsy.
I think it’s the manufacturers we need to yell at and let them know what us customers are looking for making our own clothes. Especially as we rethink fast fashion and clothes that actually fit us.
Since the selling model and platform already exists and works, maybe another group can set up again like Shopify?
Thankfully Discoveryfabrics.com and other Independent family owned businesses that re growing will fill the void. We sell by the yard and our overhead is much higher than Amazon…and our margins are much slimmer. But it’s not always about maximizing profit. We love what we do, we have passion and we actually sew. The level of customer service is so different than buying from Amazon. Amazon doesn’t show you examples of finished garments or tell you which print coordinates with which plain. And they sure don’t spend hours on the phone chatting with customers.
Not so quietly now: as of yesterday it’s gone completely, including all the listings on Amazon. This is great news for quilters but terrible news for all the custom plush folks, right before the holiday rush. Fabric had crowded out all the other suppliers, and was the only place you could reliably get most colors of Shannon.
Eventually the gap will be filled, but that’s gonna cost a lot of small creators in the meantime.
So true! I don’t know if you belong to the Facebook Group “I Love Cuddle” (by Shannon Fabrics) but people are sick about this over there. It appears that Shannon wasn’t even aware . . . it was so quiet. I was starting a small business using cuddle; but I can’t afford purchasing bulk nor do I have the place to store it. Fabricdotcom/Amazon were so reliable and great pricing. I wonder what’s going to happen to all of the inventory.
It was just a matter of time! I shopped at Fabric.com when it was the ORIGINAL Fabric.com and for several years enjoyed the comraderie that invited me to shop again and again. Personal “thank you’s” from the President and other staff members gave such a personal touch to that business – they OBVIOUSLY cared about the customer and their needs for quality products, excellent customer service (that included fast shipping and delivery of any order, no matter how large or small!) and continually offered the BEST in fabric designs.
So many lessons to be learned from Fabric.com, but alas! not in this case – guess one could say it’s all about the Benjamins?!?!?!
Well this is a total disappointment. Used to rely on Fabric.Com for many of my fabric needs. Absolutely do not want to be limited by precut lengths of fabric.
I’ve bought fabric from Amazon – never again! They don’t know how to describe fabric or its content so you know what you are getting. They misrepresent colors and fabrics, prints don’t display correctly- its bad. For example, I bought a “jersey” print that was described as a small floral, red with green leaves. The flowers were huge, the red was flaming orange and the jersey was shiny polyester shower curtain fabric. I’ve returned the 2 pieces I bought and won’t buy garment fabric from them again. The only fabric from Amazon I’ve had good luck with is precut quilting fabric like jelly rolls from a known designer and manufacturer. If you know what you want- its the real thing and you can trust it. But nothing else on Amazon is worth your time. This is sad because Fabric.com was a place I could go to when I couldn’t find what I wanted anywhere else.
I have had the opportunity to purchase A LOT of fabric in the past 4 months. I have purchased it from vendors in Canada, the USA , the UK and Europe. The internet is really great. You can find everything under the sun and if you are really stuck, you can go to a USA company called Spoonflower . They have fabrics that people have designed and have it in every possible type of fabric from a cotton to a linen to a knit to a canvas to a minky. It is truly amazing. I did purchase some things from fabric.com but for the most part, I found much better options at different smaller vendors. If you guys live in the USA, etsy is full of small shops with all kinds of lovely fabric. Canada has a few lovely shops too with beautiful incredible types of wool. If you would like any names, I can give them too you. Good luck and enjoy the journey.
Finally someone mentions Spoonflower!
@Nora Jane Danielson, thanks so much for your kind comment. Yes, would you share names, please? In light of this current news – and although some alternate sources have already been mentioned here – I’m sure I’m not the only one that would benefit from checking out additional and tested options. This would be greatly appreciated; TIA.
Shameless self promo, but Raspberry Creek Fabrics here. Same printers and ink and Spoonflower, higher quality base fabrics because we custom mill them in LA, faster turnout around, much lower prices. Happy to answer questions!
$34 a yard. Really. You think trendy designer cloth is a replacement for affordable prints from Fabric.com.
We’re not your customer base. We don’t have that kind of money.
I have been very happy with Quilted Twins. They have a large variety of quality fabrics at discounted prices.
Heather here from Girl Charlee Fabrics! We have a huge selection of high-quality knit fabrics at great prices and offer free shipping for orders over $99 and low prices flat rate shipping options. Check us out at girlcharlee.com. Free swatches if you want to see anything in person, and we ship fast 🙂
I don’t understand all the hate on precut fabrics. Sure, you might buy more than you need but it’s that way with EVERY OTHER craft supply. Yarn is precut. Thread is precut. We can learn to live with it and use our scraps and leftovers for craft projects.
Also, Since nobody has mentioned them yet, try Vogue Fabrics for apparel and specialty fabrics- great prices, high quality fabrics and they offer wholesale bolts online too. Or visit their huge store in Evanston, IL just north of Chicago.
When you’re working with a historical costume pattern, such as a Regency dress or a walking skirt, 5 yards isn’t going to cut it. Want to make floor length cloaks? Piecing, even though it was customary back then, would be a night mare.
A few more suggestions for indy fabric stores on the net: Josephines, Harts, Fabricplusmore (batiks!!), Ft Worth Fabrics, Hawthorne Supply, and, of course, Spoonflower……
I used to buy from Fabric.com when it was family owned. They had a donkey and alpaca’s and some llama’s too, I think. I ussed to love to read about what was happening with the animals and family. I didn’t realize Amazon had bought them.
I used to buy from fabric.com but I’ve switched over to Etsy.
I highly recommend Hunniequilt for quilt cottons! The owner is very attentive and packages beautifully! You can tell that she loves her shop and her customers!
I LOVE Hunnie Quilt! My favorite Etsy shop!
Johnson’s Fabrics out of Memphis is a great place to buy decorator fabric, upholstery, and drapery fabric and all the supplies.
Check out rainierfabrics.com for fabric printed in WA state
Absolutely dreadful news. A few months ago I bought 4 yards of cotton lawn on Amazon because the color way was no longer available on Fabric.com. What I received was 4 1-yard cuts in 4 separate shipments! And when I complained they acted like they truly did not understand the issue, stating that I selected 4 yards and I got 4 yards so what’s the problem?! Customer Service was terrible and I ended up using part of the fabric for a different project. I don’t see myself buying fabric on Amazon again.
This upsets me. I loved Fabric.com. They had a great selection of fabric with reasonable pricing. Best part, I live in Canada, it came right to my door and it came fairly quickly. I don’t live close to a fabric store so it was nice to go on line and buy what I needed. I’m really going to miss them. 😔
This sucks so much. This article was written towards the manufacturers but the buyers are in pain. No way does Amazon take up the slack. I dare you to find a flannel quilt back on Amazon.
I am so sorry to read about why Fabric.com closed their business. I will never buy fabric from Amazon!
How sad to see this company close. I am a quilt instructor and make quilts for patients fighting cancer. We buy a lot of fabric and 90% from Fab.com. They had the best customer service, selection lf breast cancer fabrics and prices of any other shop online. This makes me very sad…big companies have become very greedy.
I am so sorry to read about why Fabric.com closed their business. I will never buy fabric from Amazon!
How sad to see this company close. I am a quilt instructor and make quilts for patients fighting cancer. We buy a lot of fabric and 90% from Fab.com. They had the best customer service, selection of breast cancer fabrics and prices of any other shop online. This makes me very sad…big companies have become very greedy.
Amazon is a cancer on the internet. Over the past couple of years they have gradually shut down a lot of their former vendors. Prices are generally much higher than the same item if you can find it at a brick and mortar, but they’ve shut down so many small brick and mortar vendors that you often can no longer find what you are looking for locally because there IS no locally anymore. Many former small vendors on Amazon are gone. They’ve cut down on competition and prices have gone up. They do not police their vendors either. A battery seller has been on Amazon for years who routinely repackages and resells used batteries (for cell phones and the like) as new. Vendors, especially foreign vendors, routinely picture one item and send you something entirely different.
I’m just recovering from a decades-long serious illness. I recently hit JoAnn’s – missing Hancock Fabrics desperately – and was utterly shocked at the prices. It cost me nearly $20 to buy enough of their deeply discounted fabric for a potter’s apron. That’s less than 3 yards. Common cotton canvas was priced over $12 a yard. Denims were priced over $20 a yard. I was in shock. Who can afford that? I went to WalMart and their fabric section is one aisle. A very SHORT aisle. They had very little of any interest. They hardly even had any thread. Many sewing items were not stocked – just empty shelves with stickers where they should be. This “just in time” stocking philosophy is just too late as far as this consumer is concerned.
Never mind, I thought, there is still Fabric.com. Except I put Fabric.com into the web browser address line and it goes to Amazon. No. There is NOT still Fabric.com. I will not be buying fabric from Amazon. NOT EVER. If it had been me, I’d have sent the 4 yards of fabric sent to me in 1 yard increments back for an immediate refund. I guess getting it cut up like that is fine if you were going to make a quilt, but maybe not even then. What if you wanted that for your quilt backing? Or you wanted it for binding? Or curtains?
And I’m very sorry, but most quilt stores are totally out of my price range. I walked in to one not long ago and walked right out. Sticker shock. No, I DO NOT have $40 a yard for fabric for a quilt. If she weren’t already gone, prices like that would have killed my grandmother outright. Most of the “alternatives” offered here to Fabric.com are so overpriced I was afraid my nose was going to start to bleed.
Yarn is getting hard to find as well. Hobby Lobby (granted I haven’t shopped there for decades due to their highly objectionable practices) has stopped carrying any brand of yarn but their own. Like, just this past week. I used to get a lot of my yarn at Hancock, as well as nearly all my fabric, but they’ve been gone for years now. Apparently sewing, knitting, and crochet are now the purview only of rich dabblers who don’t mind dropping $35 for a skein of mohair from a virgin goat. And think $40 a yard print-on-demand fabric is a suitable replacement for $3 to $6 a yard discounted prints.
I had to get creative so I thought…what the heck? I put an add on Craigslist looking for yarn and fabric destashes. I had NO idea people were that READY to get rid of their stuff. Massively discounted and in good condition. Times are tough and you have to do what you can to save a dollar these days. I did this AFTER I went to the Goodwill and other thrift shops in town because they had fabric and yarn marked down only 50 cents UNDER RETAIL. Unbelievable! Thought I’d might mention what I did just in case others want to do the same.
This is horrible!
I am so sad that fabric.com shut down. I have been sewing for 55 years and I have purchased a lot of fabric from fabric.com over the years. Amazon is not the same as a fabric store. I do not want to purchase fabric in 1, 3 or 5 yard increments. Also I cannot find what I am looking for on Amazon. I will switch to buying fabric in person from local fabric shops; probably not much from Joann’s as I consider them more of a craft store.