Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Cotton Fabric Prints & Solids



What a beautifully sunny day! This post is going to be on cotton prints that are available. I know, boring if you wanted some DIY crafting detail, but great for those of you picking out fabrics for those slip covers, dresses, swim cover ups, beach totes and all those other fun items you wanted me to make for you. For those of you that just want to scroll through and look at some pretty fabrics, enjoy ;) If you are interested in a specific print please contact me via Craftzies.etsy.com for orders pertaining to home accents, slip covers, etc. and via SophiaDeLaMer.etsy.com for clothing. This helps me keep the various items I make a bit more organized, however if you do contact me on Craftzies and it is in relation to a clothing item, I will message you back where you originally contacted me from, as well as at the other site if necessary. In short, don’t worry, we will get it all straightened out J


These cotton prints range in style and the weight is usually that of a quilting cotton. Kona cottons are a little heavier and are available online and in the stores in many cases so if you were specifically looking for a Kona cotton, let me know and I can direct you further. The prices for each print need to be checked but the prices range from about $7-$12 a yard on average. The price of your finished item will be based on the time as well as the cost of the fabric. If I am charged shipping to order your fabric, that will be tacked on, though I do of course prefer not to have to pay shipping, in which case you will not be for the fabric to originally be shipped to me. As you peruse the fabrics, you can click on an image and it will enlarge the photo for you. In some cases only one fabric has been tagged with an id, in some cases, a grouping has. Once you have found a fabric you are interested in please message me the id and I will send back that image or grouping of fabrics and we will narrow down the exact print that way.




I have each set of prints marked for easy identification. If you see a print repeated, feel free to send me the catalog number for both, or one. I will message you back after reviewing your order request and send back the swatch you picked so we have fabric confirmation. That way we both know for sure, the fabric I am going to purchase for you will be the fabric you like. I do ask, if possible, that you pick a backup fabric in the event that your first fabric choice is sold, however this does not happen often. If I remember correctly, I believe it has only been once that a customer picked an upholstery and as she needed 16+ yards of the fabric, and there was not enough at either local shop to make the project work. That was for upholstery fabrics however, and those fabrics will be my next blog post for those of you interested in upholstery fabrics. In the case of cotton prints, they are in stock regularly and unless it is an overly popular fabric or been in circulation a while and about to be pulled, I don’t have a lot of problems finding the specific fabrics you would like. I do order specific fabrics for customers on a regular basis so if you like a specific fabric online you are free to ask and I can either see if I have it locally, or if you would like to order the fabric and have it shipped to me, or ship me fabric directly from you. Those are available options, I just ask that we discuss it prior to having fabric shipped so I can plan to pick up the fabric form my po box and I can keep everything organized on this end.






A recent addition to the fabric buying process is that the fabric shop www.FabricDepot.com in Portland has a TON of fabrics and they will allow customers to purchase fabric from their online website and mark “for store pickup” so they do not have to pay shipping, and in the comments section put “pick-up for Lindsay @ Craftzies-(date/ time).” For the date/ time on the comments section when ordering, you can either put down the date of the Friday following 3 business days from when you ordered your fabric originally, or you can ask me and I will tell you the next time I will be picking up. I will go to this fabric shop once a week and pick up fabric for orders. This shop in many cases does not have the fabric available on their websites available in their shops. They ask for 2-3 days (sometimes 4-5 for upholstery fabrics/ “hard to find fabrics”-and no, I have asked several times and they have not clarified on what “hard to find” fabrics means..but I haven’t run into a problem yet if that helps ;) in which to find/ cut/ place your fabric order aside in their “ready for pickup” section, and they only allow customers to pick up the fabric Monday through Friday. They ask that if I am picking up fabric for my customers, that I have a copy of the original order you placed with them so that they know who placed the order (so you will have to email that to me @ Craftzies@gmail.com), and also that the order  you place online (in the comments section) says I am picking up for you (Lindsay @ Craftzies-date/ time of pick-up) so there are no issues when I go to pick up your order. 




Fabric Depot is about 35 minutes away from me however they have nice fabric prices, a large selection of fabrics, and the fact that they have an online fabric source locally for me and available for my customers is very helpful as I can send them to the website and they can find a vast array of fabrics. That is not to say they have everything, or that I would not go to another shop for different type of fabric, however other than Joanns ( www.Joanns.com ) this is the only fabric shop online that I know of right now. I will however in my free time (it might be 2014 though, I warn you) I will try and see if there are any other fabric shops locally that have fabrics you can view and purchase online. I also have 2 Mill End fabric shops local and will also pick-up from there. They do not have their fabrics available online though so we have to rely on images I send to you. For specific images of fabrics you would like emailed to you, please send along your email address so that I can send those photos. If you would like specific fabric swatches mailed to you, please send your email address, your mailing address, and the type/ color of fabric you would like sent and I will get those to you. 



You may be wondering how much fabric you need for a project, and it is very helpful to me if you send measurements and I can determine how much yardage will be needed for the project. If you would like to speed up the ordering process a bit you are free to measure and order the yardage needed yourself. Some of my customers are excellent at determining the fabric needed, and others need help. You can message/ email me and ask if you need help. If you do not know or would like confirmation on your yardage calculation feel free to message me and I can confirm.  I do try to get back to questions and requests quickly, but I am in the shop so much of the time and coordinating projects in progress, until I have an extra set of hands to help (which I hope will be by Fall ;) it does at times take me a few days to get back to you. Please just be patient, I will get back. If you don’t hear from me you are free to message me again, I won’t consider it harassment, I will definitely get back to you. I really need a shop elf so until that happens, just bear with me a little bit on the communication front, I promise we will definitely communicate in the next few days in regards to your upcoming request. I don’t usually turn down orders. If you have not heard from me it may because I have a note on your “almost an order” form in which I am waiting for an answer on something. This may be that you wanted to split payment and I am waiting to hear on how you wanted that. I might be waiting on measurements, fabric type. If you have not heard from me it does help if you check your last message from me and see. If not, I might just be that behind. I am catching up though! 


In the mean time, here are more fabric prints, all of which are cottons. These prints come from a wide range of shops locally, and I have also included a few links of shops I have a tendency to shop at so as to help my customers along in the ‘finding the perfect fabric’ department. These fabrics can and are used to make a variety of items including dresses, additional clothing, and then slip covers, table clothes, and additional home accents. Feel free to take a look at the fabrics I have images of below and let me know if you are interested in an order. These prints can also be used to make children’s clothing, aprons, bedspreads, duvet covers, bed skirts, pillow shams, you name it.


(above-skirt/ blouse prints)

In regards to prints you see here, I do try to keep an active list however if you see something you really like feel free to message me and I can see if it is available. If not, we very well might be able to find you a print that is similar. If you are interested in a mix & match-patchwork type item, let me know what multiple prints you had in mind. In a lot of cases my customer add their own creativity into these items I make for them so feel free to shoot me a message and ask questions on what is possible for pattern and design alterations and let me know what you are visualizing and we can make something perfect for your needs, whether it’s for the home or clothing apparel. I will be adding to this post as soon as time allows, with a variety of solid medium weight cotton colors available specifically for the Little Desk Chair Covers, medium weight solid cotton dining chair slip covers, etc.

Until then, you can assume all solid colors are available in the prices set in my shops, except at times for a Robin's Egg Blue/ Shale and various shades of yellow. Those are available, however I find the fabrics for those shades rather thin in weight and rather see through, in which case I usually recommend the customer upgrade to a Kona Cotton, and the price per yard is about $4-$5 more per yard. The weight of the fabric is not always a concern for customers wanting the Little Desk Chair Covers in my Craftzies shop, but it does more for those interested in dining slip covers, table clothes, etc. The fabrics below are also the shades available for clothing over on my Sophia site @ www.SophiaDeLaMer.etsy.com and I currently have Linen, Linen Look, and Poplin swatches shown.

(Above-Linen)

(above-Linen Look -cotton blend-lighter in weight, wrinkles less)

(above-Twill)

Have a fabulously creative day & thanks so much for stopping by. If you know of any other local/ online fabric shops definitely share!

Lindsay ;)

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Bridal and Evening Fabrics


Hello Everyone! This post is going to be dedicated to Bridal and Evening Fabrics. If you are interested in fabrics feel free to scroll through and if you are here for a sizing chart conversion you will find it  In the past I have posted the fabrics I have available locally on my Picasa photo pages, and yet I realized the easiest way to discuss and display them all without all of you having to go to yet another site to view the fabrics would simply be to create a few posts on the various fabric groupings.


In general, I can make a dress out of just about any fabric you would like, and in many cases, a customer will contact me asking if they can provide their own fabric, and I do allow this. Prices do change so I do ask that you contact me prior to sending fabric so I can ensure the correct yardage, notions, and additional details are properly supplied, and I can also keep a look out for fabric to arrive via my po box. For the fabrics I have locally available to me, I am able to send sample photos as well as actual fabric samples via the mail. For those fabrics found online, I do ask that the customer request fabric samples themselves directly from the site so they can determine what fabric they would like on their own. This is simply for the sake of time as the samples can be send directly to you.


Once the customer has decided on the fabric, the dress style has been selected, measurements have been provided and the material funds have been received, your dress order is started. The time it takes to make a custom wedding dress is determined by a number of factors, though mostly the detail of the dress takes up most of the time. Bridal dresses are shipped out USPS Priority/ Express and are subject to those fees. All other shipping internationally via USPS does not provide tracking, so it is imperative that for all bridal orders, priority is selected. Those fees are higher, however this way we both know it goes from my hands to their hands to your hands, and when it’s in their hands we can track that package!


This dress shown below is being modeled and this is a well loved style, a Retro 1950’s remake, and I really liked this pattern. This is the first and so far, only dress I have made from this pattern, but it was a really nice pattern, that looped scarf is a really clean design. The directions were clear, and about a year after making this dress I found an article in Threads in which they show the best ways to make a really quality dress (it was a great article and I couldn’t agree more with the ways in which the author suggests building up the perfect party dress) and they used this same pattern.




The only thing about this dress in the photos is that my lovely (mom) model was a bit too small in the dress. The upper waist on this dress is intended to be more fitted, but with my model a size 6-7 and the dress a size 12, it’s not too bad for photos.




You want the bottom hem of that dress to be perfect, and this had such a lovely full skirt. Hours and hours of hand hemming later, you knew it was worth it. Here are a few more photos of this dress being made. I warn you, the lighting isn’t the best. It does show you how the upper waist looks on this with a model more the same size though.



Last year The Marilynn in classic white was my most popular wedding dress, despite how simple it is in comparison with some of the fancier wedding dresses. It is really quite lovely for a garden wedding though and a lot of the brides found it to be classic, elegant, and yet comfortable for wearing for hours.







So let’s talk fabric. Here are a number of fabric samples, and they are mainly from the shops locally. These shops do not have fabrics listed on their websites in a lot of cases, but they were ever so nice to allow me to pop in and take some photos of their designer fabrics. The possibilities are practically endless but if I know what you have in mind, I can help make you the perfect dress. Help me see what you see, and then we can make something spectacular together for your big day!

I am currently in the process of adding id numbers to the fabrics for easy identification but in the mean time, for these types of Bridal/ Evening fabrics, if you are interested in a fabric please message me via Sophia (www.SophiaDeLaMer.etsy.com) with the type of fabric you are interested in and I will message you back with images with id tags.

So here are some fabric sites I have found online that has a nice selection of bridal and evening fabrics. If you find some really great sites, definitely feel free to share. I know I can’t be the only one that wants to talk fabric! ;)




















*All of the above fabrics are shades of white, off white, ivory, and the last having silver added. Once in a while, you will find a champagne or beige colored fabric in with the bridal swatches, however for the most part, they are white or off white in color. At times fabrics can appear darker in the images as I am taking photos inside. If you would like fabric images emailed to you or would like confirmation on the colors/ samples sent, please message via email or etsy. TY :)






A number of the dresses I have listed in my shop are priced with the intent that the fabric price is around $20/ yard. For those of you interested in fabrics priced higher than that average, the additional fabric cost will be multiplied by the fabric yardage needed, and then included in your final price. If interested, please contact me with what you had in mind and I can send samples via email, via post, and we can discuss the style you were interested. Once I have a solid idea of what you wanted, I will be happy to send you a price for your new dress.

Here are a number of Bridal fabrics I have recently found online:

Evening Glitz
These fabrics are also at my local shops and in many cases, carried on a regular basis. Aren't they lovely?


















And then photos of a variety of designer fabric images:








































Below are a few links to other fun fabrics:

silks:

fashion fabrics:

I do have a few fabric sets ready to go for stretch and non-stretch satin and satin blends for those interested in slips, linings for jackets, lingerie, etc.


It looks like that is about all I have right now in the way of bridal/ Evening fabric photos from local shops so far. If you find a fabric photo online and would like to see if I have a similar fabric locally in stock, please send me a link or image of the fabric and I will check for you. For local fabrics, if you are interested in fabric swatches sent to you, please email or message via etsy your address and I will send out a fabric sample set within a few days. If you are interested in a custom order for clothing, please feel free to email me @ www.SophiaDeLaMer@gmail.com or message me via my etsy shop @ www.SophiaDeLaMer.etsy.com and I will be happy to help.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!
Lindsay ;)