Online shopping - who, what and why

Quilty Life

Aug 24

Occasionally, there is something that jumps into my cart!

Over the course of 2020, I talked a lot about using your stash up in your projects. I went into lockdown mode, and I didn’t shop - I literally walked the walk, and only sewed from my stash. Apparently, not quickly enough because there wasn’t a big dent made in what’s here.

It made sense to me - I wasn’t even going to go grocery shopping for a while - I stocked the shelves and the freezer, and I did a lot of Christmas shopping via online. Here’s a true story - I’ve purchased a car online through ebay - so once you’ve done that, buying socks, underwear and steaks is a piece of cake. Whoever invented third party shippng really invented was a godsend.

Fast forward to the spring this year - and I began to look for fabrics that I truly didn’t have (and I couldn’t find a work around for). That’s when I began to explore the online shopping community - the big and the small.

Lilacs… this is what began my online adventures.

I found charm packs from the line via the Facebook Quilter’s Classifieds, from a shop owner who had overstock.
Great - but I needed a bigger cut - and I found it on Amazon’s Fabrics.com portal.
This was easy - having found the fabric line, all I had to do was locate a source. Clicking a mouse was easy.

I may have developed a ‘habit’ of scrolling through the Classifieds at night.
This is my all time favorite fabric - and having quilted for as long as I have - that’s saying something.
Kaffe Fassets Brassica in yellow - from a shop owner who had bolts of Kaffe to move. At a reasonable price point. Yes, please!

So there’s a theme to this - convenient and easy. In 2021, I’ll take it.

I have found that shopping this way is usually a good way to control your budget.
But not always!
This beautiful panel (!! yes, please) jumped into my shopping cart late one night.
It was the feathers, I swear.

A need for a pillowcase for one of my grandsons…
This time…yes, back to Quilter’s Classifieds - but this time I put in ‘airplanes’ - I didn’t know I could do that!
The top fabric came up in a destash - and then the seller added the bonus fabric below when I told her what I was looking for. All at a modest cost - I just wanted the theme.

Along the line with the peacock project, I found that I had an affinity for a certain fabric designer from Timeless Treasuers, an extremely talented (and prolific) designer named Chong-a Hwang. Many of the fabrics that I picked for that project have her name in the selvedge, and it can become interesting when her name begins to show up in the listings. She has a serious following, and I am a huge fan. I’ve said no to most of the items I’ve seen for her - but not all.

The vast majority of my online purchases have been the Quilters Classifieds group on Facebook, a free buy and sell group that caters to the quilting community. The payments are done via paypal, and you pay the seller before it’s shipped, usually via USPS.

I’ve found it quick, convenient (maybe a bit too much so!), but there are two caveats. One, I am usually most successful when I know what I am looking for (and what’s a reasonable price for it). Two - I’m not looking for fabrics from recently released collections. At this point, I am paying retail (or discounted % off) retail.

What’s your favorite way to purchase fabrics these days? Let me know.