Where do I buy fabrics?

Helena Lachowiczová
2023-03-25T14:41:26+01:00

Happy Saturday my dear seamstresses and customers,

today I have an article for you about a question you often ask me in the news. Some time ago I answered that I would not reveal my sources, but now I don't have much reason to "not help". My professional focus is moving in a different direction and I don't want to make a living from sewing, so I decided to make my list a secret. So let's get to it.

Where do I buy ribbed fabrics?

The ribbed knits are by Mind the Maker. These are fabrics designed in Denmark and produced in Turkey. Designed means "designed or invented" in this industry.

The Danes came up with the characteristics and grammage of the knitwear, they suggest the color chart. However, the production itself is provided by the Turks. Knits are sold by rolls or half rolls. The roll is 10 or 12 meters. The width of this knit is 110 - 120 cm. It has GOTS certification but only OEKO TEX Class 2 certification. I had the certification for children done at our Czech institute TZU. The overall certification costs a lot of money and it is not worthwhile to do it one color at a time. But I will write you another separate blog on this topic.

The knits have quite different properties than those you normally come across in our e-shops. The price is also a bit higher. The selling price is around 540 CZK per meter, which is not a high price at all for such high-quality fabrics. The price for wholesalers is more favorable. I like these knits mainly because they fulfill everything I needed from a knit for leggings with suspenders ( you can find the cut here ).

I also purchased classic jersey, pointelle and or sweatpants from this manufacturer.

Let's move on.

Where are the pretty printed fabrics sourced?

Like any seamstress, I started with fabrics that are available in Czech stores. However, I soon got tired of the store offer and also the unclear licenses for the models that individual stores offer. And that's why I took a different path and became interested not in the final production of fabrics, but in the places where my own printed fabrics are created.

So I found printers that do so-called " print on demand". The first printer I tried was in Poland. Then I tried a printer with a rather expensive Spoonflower.de print.

Spoonflower only pays to order fabric wholesale in really large quantities. They are then able to give you a discount of up to 25% on the entire load. At the time, when the printing house was still in Germany, it could be calculated well. But each meter still cost roughly over 400 CZK, and in order to make a living, the seamstress had to work.

Spoonflower went through a big merger with Shutterfly and the business situation changed accordingly. Their customer service plummeted and it was very difficult to claim bad prints. The closure of the branch in Europe and withdrawal from the market came. Unfortunately, the costs of customs procedures cannot be ignored. Of course, the prints are famous. Their technology uses substances with a so-called coating .

I will explain the Coating process in a simplified way . It is a technology that prevents the colors from getting into the deeper layer of the fabric and fading after printing. Which usually happens mainly with cotton. Cotton absorbs pigments much more than other fabrics. The more polyester, the brighter and more beautiful the colors. Infuriating, right? Well, that's how it is.

In order to achieve beautiful and vivid colors on pure organic cotton (which is not easy to print), you need to have the fabric treated with a coating. And that's an extra process. It's more expensive and more expensive, and printers around Europe don't normally do it. Mainly because the coating is already done by the fabric manufacturer before they "finish" the fabric. Coated fabrics are also produced here (in the Czech Republic) by one Czech knitting factory, but again, you have to take several hundred meters.

I also tested the quality of the Polish CTNBEE . Which was when I very quickly dismissed the pampered prints from Spoonflower. I know there wasn't even a good communication with this printer, but it is possible that it has improved a lot. The prints look pretty decent.

The last printer worth mentioning is the Slovak Needles.sk . Needles is owned by the great Denisa Koctůrová and her work is great as is her communication. Needles works with a larger sample of fabrics . They offer stunning fabrics such as GOTS knit or very nice and pleasant bamboo. In this printer, you can again print from a meter of fabric. In addition, he cooperates with several designers and they are constantly expanding their offer. I also like to print here, and the prices are completely different from Spoonflower prices. Unfortunately, they don't print with a coating, but that doesn't matter. The prints look very nice.

Wholesale Fabric Dealers

Next on the list are fabric wholesalers. The origin of the substances is more or less unknown. Their fabrics only bear the seller's name and that's usually the end of it. I'll tell you where I shopped for fabrics when I was looking for specific colors or textures.

Rijs textiles. This fabric wholesaler is my favorite. It offers a large number of fabrics in a color palette that I myself need to use and I like it very much. I love structured fabrics and I really enjoy these. The price is not dizzying and acceptable for small producers. Again, it is necessary to check the certificates here and, if necessary, have the certifications completed at the TZU. Here I always bought mainly ribb, bamboo, gots cotton.

Elvelycan design . Elvelycan is a designer from Sweden this time. Their fabrics are produced elsewhere than in Sweden, of course. But that is probably already clear to everyone. If you are interested in more about the origin of fabrics, follow the channel and I will try to write something again.

Back to Elvelycan. This manufacturer has beautiful knits, also has beautiful ribbed knits in a lower grammage but printed on rotary printers. I will tell you what a rotary printer is another time. In short, it is a more demanding but much more reliable technology that can print dark and flat prints all over the surface even on highly structured fabrics full of elastane.

The result is that the ribbed knitted fabric printed by rotary printing does not have "white" ribbing when stretched.

Of course, the price is terrible for small sellers. Again, the selling price per meter reaches somewhere around 550 CZK. The purchase is a little more friendly, but it's not such a win. If you want to use their ribbed fabrics for sewing, for example " Leggings with suspenders" , it is possible even if they have a lower ratio of elastane to cotton. Their ribbed knits are tried and tested and give a beautiful fit.

Another retailer of ribbed knitwear is a competitor from Sweden, Tygdrommar.se . Again, this retailer offers a lot of their own production, which you can also buy wholesale, including ribbed knitwear in interesting colors and patterns. Their composition is 95/5 and is okay for our leggings. I noticed a problem with darker patterns and colors that were not printed correctly. But it is of course possible that this is just one role out of a thousand roles.

Family fabrics is a printer but also a seller of fabrics that it does not manufacture or print. Here I would recommend taking a look at ribbed knits, 8x4 ribbed knits and also printed fabrics. Their system is again "print on demand" and they will print your pattern for you, but also a lot of patterns from the offer from other designers.

Noteboom textiles is a seller of many kinds of fabrics. Wholesaler again. It is necessary to remove "double folded" or "roll". This means 12 meters or 50 meters from the fabric. For me, they have beautiful bamboos, also muslins and a beautiful range of organic knits.

These are my favorite manufacturers, sellers, distributors and printers. Of course, there is another list, a whole list of manufacturers and sellers of fabrics, haberdashery, etc., which I have not personally tried and I have never ordered anything from them.

I'll let it sit for now.

It still occurs to me that I could also write a list of suppliers of other supporting assortments. Threads, needles, papers, etc. This is also a voluminous list that is replaceable.

I wish you a wonderful weekend full of sewing and let me know what beautiful things you sewed.

Helena