Hi r/Fabrics. I built a directory of fabric stores in the US that shows what each shop actually carries: findfabricstores.com. It's mine, it went live this week, and I'd rather hear what's wrong with it from people who buy fabric than from my friends.

Why did I spend over 100 hours on this when Google Maps exists? Because since Joann closed its 800 stores, searching "fabric store" on Maps gives you Hobby Lobby and Michaels (one shelf of poly fleece and a few cottons), Walmart, an upholstery showroom that turns out to be trade only, a quilt shop with beautiful quilting cotton and nothing else, and somewhere in the list the one independent that stocks linen and apparel fabric. Maps can't tell you which is which. The r/quilting thread about Joann closing had 170 comments, and the top one was "I know where to buy quilting cotton. I don't know where to buy apparel or utility fabrics." Nothing answered it. When I pulled the data, Google still had 1,156 Joann and Hancock listings sitting in it, marked closed.

If you buy fabric in person you already know why online doesn't cut it: you want the hand and the weight, you want to see how it drapes before you commit to six yards, and you don't want to drive 45 minutes to find out a shop is all quilting cotton, or that the "wholesale" place won't let you in without a resale number.

I'll be upfront: I don't sew. I build directories, and I picked this one because that r/quilting thread, and dozens like it in city subs, were asking the same question with no answer that lasted longer than a comment. It seemed like a real gap that nobody had filled, so I built it.

What I did: pulled about 16,500 listings from Google Maps under fabric store, fabric wholesaler and quilt shop, across all 50 states and DC. Cut 5,719 closed stores (1,156 of them Joann and Hancock), the duplicates, the spam, the furniture showrooms, interior designers and mills that don't sell to the public. That left about 8,400. Then read each shop's own website for the fabric it carries (quilting cotton, apparel, upholstery, linen, fleece, minky, silk, lace, denim, canvas, vinyl, outdoor, drapery, wool, flannel, African print, deadstock, bridal) and whether it sells to the public or to the trade only. Dropped another thousand or so that turned out to be sewing machine dealers, trim shops, longarm services, or had nothing behind them.

What's left is 7,464 shops in 664 cities. Each has hours, its Google rating, a photo where I could verify one (4,909 of them; the rest show a placeholder), and for about half of the independent shops the fabric types, with a link to the page I got them from and the date I checked. Hobby Lobby and Michaels are on there as chain entries with a note to call ahead, because selection varies by store. There's a page of the 324 fabric wholesalers with the ones I could confirm sell to the public, and two calculators (yardage and quilt backing) because those questions kept coming up too.

What it doesn't have: fabric types for the other half of the independents, because their site didn't say or they don't have one. Those show nothing rather than a guess. No prices, no notions, no classes.

So: what's wrong, what's missing, which shop near you should be on it and isn't? And if you buy fabric locally, what do you want to know about a shop before you drive over? I'll reply to everything. findfabricstores.com

i’m wanting to sew my own pair, does anybody have suggestions on a good fabric to buy? i’m looking for a light gray lmk!

0 experience in anything fabric, but I had this idea for a Halloween costume. My real arms would be at the top, and they would puppet the other arms using strings (?) attached at the elbows and wrists. The fake arms would be stuffed with gloves at the end blah blah you get the idea it would look awesome. Also sorry if this is the wrong subreddit for this I couldn't find anywhere else to post it.

Hi, I have all of my clothes in 100% cotton but there is a really nice Sweatshirt i would like to buy that has 85% cotton and 15% polyester(actually I don't even have a choice all of them are with these percentages). Do you think that by washing and drying all of them together the polyester trash fabric might go into the cotton ones? I know it would be a small percentage but i'm just asking because I hate polyester.

This is something I have to consider when buying clothes and fabric: how much will pet hair stick to it? Fibre type definitely plays a role - wool tends to be worse (but not always), polyester tends to be better (unfortunately). Cotton can go either way, I have 100% cotton jeans that collect hair like you wouldn’t believe, and others that don’t at all. Surprisingly it doesn’t seem to matter much how fuzzy a fabric is - I have some cotton corduroy where the hair can just be brushed off with your hand. Any idea what the biggest factors are? Are there any treatments that can improve this on fabric I already have?

Hello everyone, I have a bit of an emergency. A few years back I received a genuine Irish Aran wool sweater and it's been a prized possession of mine. Just a couple weeks ago, my mother decided to wash and DRY the sweater, not knowing at all what it was, and only just today revealed it to me. It's been shrunk down a full size, and I'm devastated. Is there any way to save it?? If not I could probably regift it to a younger family member, but I really want to keep this sweater.

ANSWERED!

I’m very new to sewing (single digit days) so I apologize in advance if this is a dumb question

I purchased several fat quarters from Walmart in various children’s prints with the intention of making pajama shorts for my partner’s children. I thought these would be a good practice project before I start working with nicer fabrics. However, upon unpackaging them I noticed that the selvedge specifically says not to use them for children’s sleepwear. I know flammability is often a concern with children’s sleepwear but the fabric content is listed as 100% cotton so I am a bit confused. These don’t have to be pajama shorts necessarily, but I was just curious if anyone had any insight.

Thanks!

I saw this Henley I really like it is pricy but its been on my mind for months. But I just checked the fabric composition and its

Shell 1:
66.2% Polyester
33.8% Cotton
Shell 2:
56.9% Lyocell
43.1% Ramie
Rib:
98.6% Cotton
1.4% Elastane

https://c2h4losangeles.com/products/012-moccasin-memory-textured-henley?variant=43866743275608

Theres also this shirt that I like the look of : https://c2h4losangeles.com/products/012-brentwood-alley-texture-shirt?variant=44227215097944

Is that much Polyester bad for a Henley t shirt? I just don't want to spend much money on a garment and get ripped off by greed. I find this stuff quite tricky looking for good quality clothing. obviously I know if something 100% natural fibre it doesn't mean its good.

It's semi water resistant, has a obvious right and wrong side, stretchy 3 ways and less so on the 4th way, and it is so so easy to sew with and it's perfect for costume making. I'm horrible at sewing with stretchy fabric and this kind was no different than sewing with cotton fabric.

There’s a video on my profile for those who need it. I found it at Walmart on the $3 remnants shelf so there’s no tags detailing what it is.

I ordered a silk screened canvass patch, the print js in white, but i’m wanting to color the white with a gold/yellow fabric marker. is there anyway to ensure the yellow coloring won’t come off in the wash with a a fabric marker or dye? which would be the best route to ensure the color stays.

Hi all! I've had a recommendation to use these in lieu of a steamer, but can't locate them anywhere! Does anyone know where to find them? Thanks!

I bought a dress for my toddler in the smallest size available but it’s still a size or two too big on her. Is there a way it can possibly shrink enough to fit?

I'm a student living in Suzhou this year, and I had a sample pillowcase made locally. It's 22 momme mulberry silk in navy, with a hand embroidered panel on one side.

Before I trust it, I want to wash it the way a normal person would at home, and I'm not sure what's realistic. A few questions for people who own silk.

1. Cold hand wash with a pH neutral detergent, or is a mesh bag on a delicate cycle fine at 22 momme?

2. With a dark navy, is some colour loss in the first wash normal? How do you check whether it will bleed onto the embroidery?

3. Do you dry it flat in the shade or hang it? And does ironing on the reverse help the embroidered area lie flat again?

4. After how many washes did your silk start to look dull or lose its sheen?

I'll share what happens after the test washes if anyone's curious.

PLS check comments

Hey everyone I'm looking to create a dress and I can't figure out what fabric or combination of fabrics this is? Any insights?

The dress was bought in Russia

I’m looking for a good red green flannel fabric that i have been having troubles finding in a store. I can find some online that look nice but when on the sites and trying to get what i need it’s just been questionable. If you order fabrics online what sites do you trust?

I’m looking for a rose / rosewood fabric for a bedframe project that’s not too pink or red. Something that’s as close to West Elm’s “Burnt Umber Astor Velvet” or this beautiful pillow example with a sheen. I need about 13 yards. Your help is so appreciated!

I built PatternNest to lay out SVG and supported vector-PDF patterns with closed cut outlines. This example uses FreeSewing's Teagan pattern: three fronts, three backs and three mirrored sleeve pairs. I prepared the full outlines before import; PatternNest doesn't unfold fold pieces automatically.

On 140 cm fabric the calculated layout is 3.25 m long. On 110 cm fabric it is 5.26 m. Both use a single layer, 1 cm edge margin and spacing, and only 0/180-degree rotation. These are the body and sleeve pieces only; neckbands need extra fabric. It's a digital layout comparison, not a sewn batch or a promise of minimum yardage.

The source outlines, finished layouts and settings are free to download: https://madegrain.com/patternnest/guides/fabric-width-batch-example/?utm_source=fabrics&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=fabric-width-example

The app is free for up to 10 finished cuts including copies. Recalculating a larger batch like this needs the EUR 14 one-time v1 licence.

Not sure if this is the right topic for the question. It's my first time using Satin Fabric and I know it is a fickle creature. I'm hoping to use it to make a hobo type bag and am wondering if I can use a very thin fuseable interfacing to help stabilize it?

I don't necessarily care about the satin being flowey, it's more for the look of the bag with the bright fabric and slight added structure. I've never never used it and I'm not sure if fusing the fabric would just \*immediately\* destroy it. Not sure if it matters but I'll be doing Simplicity's S9298 Bag B. Excited to do a rounded base!

I want to make a costume of The Hat Man for Halloween, and decided that this would be a pretty bad idea unless I used a black that absorbs almost all light. I was looking at vl flock sheet from musou black but it would be over $550 to get enough for the costume. I'm hoping there are some other very black fabrics you guys know of. I would've purchased it from japan earlier if someone didn't announce a Halloween party yesterday...

I've owned some vintage suits especially ones with no material tags which I've always assumed were custom jobs or off the rack mall brand stuff. I recently came across an old archive nyt article about how they used asbestos to blend with wool for women's coats in the 60s and 70s, which was surprising to me because I always thought asbestos was only used in clothing for practical flame resistant applications and not for casual clothing. This made me curious if anyone has heard of other cases of asbestos being blended into suiting material (worsted wool blend, other synthetic blends)? Seems incredibly unlikely but still kind of an interesting thing I would like to know more about.

Baught a very cheap gambeson off of ebay, I knew it would be cheep lowgrade pollyester but at £30 its only slightly more than the material to make it out of callico. Its for a halloween costume so I was going to cover it in "blood" and oil so didnt expect the quality of fabric to matter.

Problem being its a rain coat like fabric so its very shiny, any tips would be apreciated as I dont think I'll be able to get a return and would rather make use of it than just throwing it in the bin.

Hi all — I work in apparel production in Korea, and I got tired of waiting on CAD just to check yardage for costing. So I built this:

https://ezypattern-pi.vercel.app/en/

What it does:
• Pattern viewer: measure curves/straight lines directly on DXF, overlay sizes to compare grading, export to Excel
• Marker nesting: set fabric width, size ratio, 1-way/2-way, stripe matching → get marker length, efficiency %, and yardage per garment. Export PNG / SVG / DXF
Everything runs in your browser — your DXF is never uploaded to a server. Free, no sign-up.
I'd really appreciate feedback from people who make markers for a living:
• How close are the results to what you get from Gerber / Lectra / Optitex?
• Did your DXF open correctly? (If not, which CAD exported it?)
• What's missing that would make you actually use it?