Hello readers! In today’s post, I’ll talk about some of my favorite online suppliers for shirtmaking fabric and notions. Everyone loves to shop for fabric online, right?
Fabric Resources
In this section, we’ll look at a variety of online fabric stores at different price points. Note that when I’m doing online shopping, my focus is usually on getting the highest quality for the best price, which isn’t necessarily always the cheapest option. However, we’ll look at a few inexpensive fabric sources, too.
We’ll start our fabric store tour at the high end: Emma One Sock. If you’re looking for quality cotton that you’ll love wearing and don’t mind paying for that quality, Emma One Sock is your store. There’s a decent variety of price points here, varying from nice-quality poplin shirting at $14/yard up to Liberty of London cotton lawns nearing $40/yard. Linda from EOS also carries a lovely Egyptian pima cotton in a variety of colors.
Cotton-lycra shirting from EOS
fabric.com is a reliable source for name-brand fabrics. Are you looking for that Robert Kaufman chambray that so many sewing bloggers have been using for shirts and shirtdresses? It’s nearly always available on fabric.com. The prices here are competitive, and shipping is free on orders over $50.
If you’re looking for a fantastic deal on shirting fabric, check fabricmartfabrics.com regularly. This store is a “jobber,” meaning that they take on excess stock and sell it for a great deal. They also run frequent sales, so keep an eye out for those, too. They fairly regularly get in shipments of cotton shirtings and flannels, so if there isn’t much stock when you first check, check again in a few days.
A “hidden gem” source of shirting fabrics is Farmhouse Fabrics. They carry a nice selection of high quality cottons, usually at very competitive prices–often cheaper than comparable fabrics are sold elsewhere.
Japanese cotton from Farmhouse Fabrics
Michael’s Fabrics doesn’t have the most up-to-date website, but that’s not the draw here. What is the draw is to get onto their email list and get notified about their email-announced sales. Michael’s carries very high-end designer fabrics, and a few times a year, they have sales for 50% off of everything. But the really special thing about Michael’s is once or twice a year, they offer bundles of Zegna shirting for under $10/yard. No, you don’t get to choose the cuts in these bundles, but Zegna cotton is to-die-for, and the colors/patterns in these bundles are always neutral. I’m not a big bundle person, in general, but the Zegna bundles from Michael’s are wonderful.
Japanese cottons are great for shirts and blouses. Lightweight and high-quality, these cottons are a dream to both sew and wear. Based out of Tokyo, Miss Matatabi is probably the most accessible source for a wide variety of Japanese cottons. You can find the usual suspects here, like Kokka and Nano Iro, along with a lot of lesser-known brands. Even with shipping from Japan, prices are reasonable for the quality of the fabric.
Cotton lawn from Miss Matatabi
Interfacing
If you’re going to spend the time to fit and sew your own shirts, you’ll want to use quality interfacing on your cuffs, collars, and bands/facings. Quality interfacing will help ensure that your shirt lasts through multiple washings without the fabric separating from the interfacing or the interfacing bubbling. (I avoid working with Pellon interfacing available from JoAnn’s and other big-box craft stores unless I absolutely have to use it.)
Hands-down, my favorite interfacing to work with (and pretty much the only fusible interfacing that I’ll work with) is the interfacing developed by professional shirtmaker Pam Erny at Fashion Sewing Supply. She has a wide variety of weights and colors, for both knit and woven fabrics. You do not need to pre-shrink Pam’s interfacing–just follow her instructions for use. She has several interfacing products that she’s developed specifically for shirt collars, cuffs, and bands, too: Shirtmaking interfacings.
If you don’t have access to Pam Erny’s interfacing, the interfacing offered by Palmer Pletsch is also a really nice choice. Like Pam’s interfacing, the P-P interfacing is available in a variety of different weights, including one product designed specifically for waistbands.
B. Black and Sons has been around in the Los Angeles area for over 80 years. Family owned and operated, this store focuses on quality tailoring supplies. They carry a number of specialized interfacings for both suit and shirtmaking. While you can order online from their website, if you’re ever in the LA area, their brick-and-mortar store is definitely worth a visit, especially if you have an interest in high quality woolens or cotton shirting.
Notions
I called out interfacing separately from the rest of the shirtmaking notions that I’ll be discussing because I feel that using good interfacing is really important to getting a good result. For the rest of the notions and suppliers that I’ll be talking about, the “name brand” is less important, but you’ll want to have some of these items in your sewing arsenal.
Buttons: Sure, you can just pick up cards of buttons at JoAnn’s (and I certainly do that sometimes), but if you’re looking for more unique buttons for your shirts, Pam at Fashion Sewing Supply carries some very interesting designer options.
Carved Coconut Buttons from Fashion Sewing Supply
Pressing Tools: When you start browsing down the rabbit hole of pressing tools, sometimes it seems like there’s an overwhelming number of gadgets available. If I had to choose just two pressing tools to own, they would be a pressing ham and a sleeve board.
Pressing Ham: A pressing ham is invaluable in getting nice-looking bust darts and princess seams because you’ll be pressing them over a curve that’s similar to the curves on your body. You’ll notice an apparent improvement in fit right away once you start using a ham. You can buy a ham at most sewing notion suppliers, such as Wawak and Nancy’s Notions.
Pressing Ham
Sleeve Board: A sleeve board is basically a narrow ironing board that gives you an easy way to press sleeve and pant seams or other seams with narrow openings. Like a pressing ham, sleeve boards can be purchased from most online sewing notion suppliers, such as Wawak and Nancy’s Notions.
Collar-Turning Clamp: Fashion Sewing Supply sells a collar-turning clamp to help you turn corners and get nice, crisp collar points.
Collar-turning clamp
Buttonhole cutter and Fray Check: I’ve found that the best way to consistently get nice buttonholes is to dab a drop or two of Fray Check onto the uncut buttonhole (after stitching) and then use a buttonhole cutter to actually cut open the buttonhole. Both of these notions are available at most sewing shops, including the big box craft stores.
Buttonhole cutter + wooden block
Final Thoughts
I’ve listed some of my favorite fabric, notions, and suppliers for shirtmaking. What about your favorites? Are there any must-haves or hidden gems that I missed? Feel free to give a shout-out to your own favorites in the Comments section!
Thanks for mentioning our interfacings. I would generally suggest PerfectFuse Sheer as the main one we use for shirts. It is lightweight, but crisp. It is a poly weft. Follow the instructions in the package. It doesn’t need to be preshrunk, but cotton shirtings should be. Use a press cloth with Sheer. It won’t pucker after washing. However, with 100% rayon, even if preshrunk, you will need to touch up collar and cuffs because rayon is less stable and can pucker after washing. It presses out easily. On the front, cut the stable direction of the interfacing (lengthwise) with the direction of your buttonholes to keep buttonholes from stretching. It is so interesting reading everyone’s comments–and from all over the world. Greata site.
You have officially blew my mind with all this information and here I thought this was going to be easy peasy! rethinking strategy..lol
I’m a bit disappointed by how US-centric this is. Simple things like saying fabric.com shipping is free over $50 *for the US*. It is not free internationally, and as other people have pointed out it’s very expensive to ship from the US to elsewhere. Gillian in fact just had a post about this.
I know you can’t cover everything but an acknowledgement that this was US-focused would have been nice.
Fashion Patterns by Coni in Hainesville, WA, USA. She carries professional interfacing products for woven and knit fabrics. Also sewing tools, instruction manuals, patterns and a number of sewing blocks (including two new blocks for children in 2 size ranges). She also has a number of free videos on YouTube. Worth a look.
Shipping? There should be applicable info in her ordering section. Not sure if she’ll teach-sell at Pullayup in 2017.. If so, doesn’t Canada have a duty-free deal on purchases over a specified amount? If so, it’s great fun, deals flourish and the raspberry rolls are not to be missed!
I’m curious about your comments on interfacing. I’ve never had a problem with Pellon before. Am I missing something??
I have been using featherweight pellong from Joann and been having some problems with bubbling.
From personal experience, I’ve had problems with both bubbling and the glue just not sticking. From reading other sewing posts, I know that I’m not the only person with this issue. HOWEVER, if you find that Pellon is working for you, then great! We don’t all have to like the same things. 😉
Haha, it’s a good thing, too, or the world would be such a boring place! 🙂 I’m not sure how I’ve missed problems with Pellon. I guess I’ve just gotten lucky! *knock on wood*
You must be reading my mind! I’m just planning a shirt right now. I would appreciate an article on matching up horizontal patterns. I tried the Craftsy Shirt class and the Libety shirt as well but my memory is poor so I’m happy to follow a long with you. Thank you.
I have no connection with the business, but can recommend a UK shirting supplier called Acorn Fabrics – https://www.acornfabrics.com/ .
Their fabrics are NOT CHEAP, and those of us in Europe must add 20% VAT to all prices (they are set up more as a supplier to professional shirtmakers worldwide, not home sewers).
However, they have sale and reduced-price fabrics, their delivery charges are reasonable, their customer service is excellent and the fabrics are nothing less than divine. I bought 10m of their single twill, on deep discount, and it cost me £5.50 delivery by Royal Mail. Well worth a look if you want *superb* quality traditional shirting – and in addition, the site contains all sorts of interesting and useful information, too.
Thanks so much for sharing, you’ve made my day! I’ve been looking for good quality Oxford and Dobbie weaves for a long time, what a wonderful source!
For linen I like fabrics-store.com – their free swatches are about 1.5 – 2 inches square and are mailed out almost immediately. Not great for determining drape of fabric but better than nothing.
I’m finding it hard to get decently priced shirtings here in Ireland. Shipping from USA isn’t cost effective. I’d be interested to know if anyone in the UK or EU has any favourite shirt fabrics suppliers!
TIA
I think most Canadian sewers are like me and have completely stopped buying fabric online from US sellers – you have to almost double the price listed to get a real sense of what you’re actually going to pay for that fabric ($15/m becomes $30 when you factor in the dollar difference, shipping and customs charges). I buy now only from Canadian online fabric sellers (Thread Theory, Blackbird and more recently a lovely place in Calgary L’oiseau Fabrics) Sometimes I’ll order from the UK because their shipping charges are much lower (Minerva only charges $10 to Canada), no custom charges and the UK pound is low right now.
Kathleen, can you please, share which online stores in UK you had good experience with?
Thanks for this! I am in ontario and as much as I would love to order some of these beautiful fabrics from the USA, it is just too expensive right now, I will check out the sources you mention. We don’t have customs charges on fabrics from the UK? I didn’t know that. That would be a huge help.