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Tips for How to Buy Fabric, Needles, and Thread
National Sewing Circle EditorsDescription
Going to a fabric store for the first time can be intimidating. Or, even if you’ve been many times, trying to find something new and different can be frustrating. Learn how to buy fabric, needles and thread, and discover the different varieties available.
Fabric
Learning how to buy fabric can help save you time and money. To begin with, fabric is generally sorted in a store depending on the type of fabric. Tara Rex shows several different kinds of fabric that can all be found in various areas of a store. If you have an idea of the type of fabric you are looking for before going to a store, you can save time looking around and go straight to that section. Another tip Tara shares for learning how to buy fabric is knowing how the fabric is priced. Most fabric, unless it is a remnant or sale item, will be sold by the yard. Depending on the price, there are sometimes some good reasons to buy more fabric.
Thread
Tara also shares that there are many different types of thread available at a fabric store as well. She shares several varieties including cotton, rayon, polyester and metallic. She explains that some of these threads are common choices for either general sewing, quilting or embellishing. You will also find several different brands of threads in a fabric store, though most brands will all carry most of the different types of threads.
Needles
After you have selected a fabric and thread to use on a project, you need to choose a needle. Tara shares several of the different kinds of needle available including universal, jersey, embroidery, metallic and microtex. She explains what some of the differences between the needles are and what type of thread to use them with. Using the correct needle with different fabric and thread can help prolong the life of your sewing machine and help it run more smoothly. If you are going to purchase a new machine or even upgrade your machine, check out some great sewing machine buying tips.
So I wanted to share a personal story with you and give you a little bit of a tip for going into a fabric store for the first time where you're actually buying fabric or something, needles or thread or whatever, when you really don't know a whole lot. My personal story is my mom sewed for all my life, and I had never actually gone to buy fabric. I'd go in with her and pick out a print and she'd buy it and make me something. So I moved out and I went to go buy fabric for some curtains. And I walked out $130 poorer because I didn't know what I was buying. And I bought this really expensive fabric, apparently, and whereas I just wanted, you know, something just to cover something up. And so anyways, I just wanted to share that with you, let you know that you're not alone, and also to give you some tips. So there, as you can see, there's different kinds of fabric. This is more of a sheer fabric. This is like, like something that you can make a skirt out of, or whatever you want, and then there's this fabric, which is kind of fun and flowy, and then there's cotton, and then there's, this is outdoor fabric. And so with everything, it kind of comes with different prices per yard, and I just want you to be aware of that. So just be aware of when you're going into the fabric store what you are going to be using the fabric for. And if you're not sure, ask someone 'cause it could be pricey. So I also wanted to share with you that there are different threads that you can purchase for different fabrics and different projects. 'Cause I don't know how many people actually know that there's so many different kinds of threads. I didn't know. So there's cotton thread, a lot of quilters use cotton thread 'cause it will shrink with the cotton or just stay at the same, it doesn't shrink as much. And then there's rayon thread that you can get. This probably won't shrink much at all. And then there's polyester thread. A lot of people will use this for many, many projects. It's probably the go-to thread is the polyester. And then there's also metallic thread that you can use for embellishing, or what have you. So and with different threads, sometimes you need to use different needles as well as different fabrics, so I wanted to show you those, as well. As my thread runs away. So these are just some examples. So there's universal, which basically says it's universal and you can just use it for anything pretty much. There's jersey. So for if you're sewing like a t-shirt or something with that kind of jersey knit fabric, you can use this and it's more of a, it's a duller needle, or like, it's not as pointy. An embroidery needle. So if you have an embroidery machine, that's the needle that you would like to use. A quilting needle, and then there's a sharp needle. So I just wanted to enlighten you and just make you aware that there are these different things that when you go into the store, it's not just a one-stop shop and just get whatever you want, so, and encourage you to ask questions if you need to.
Raises more questions and confusion than help.
Enjoyed the story of her first fabric purchase, oops. I was lucky, my mom took me to the fabric store quite often, we would be picking out fabric for something for me usually. So I learned early, got my first. machine at around 7 or 8. I would tell anybody to ask before they even got started shopping. I have had other customers ask me for help, which I help when asked. You can meet a lot of new friends too. I would change one thing. When you are buying needles, make sure you are buying the needles your sewing machine dealer recommends. Or it might say in your sewing machine manual. You can damage your machine if you use the wrong needles. The brand of needles shown, schmetz, is a good all around needle I have used for years. There are types for every type of fabric. I thought she gave a lot of good basic information in 30 seconds.
It would have been more helpful if she actually described what the uses are for the different fabrics, threads and needles. This video basically just informs the persons watching that there are different fabrics, threads and needles, with no other helpful information.
Seems like a very sweet person, but I don't think this is very helpful to new sewers other than reinforcing the fact that there are, indeed, different fabrics, threads and needles.