Shopping for fabric: eQuilter

Where do you buy your fabric? Do you ever shop online? For the last year or so I’ve bought most of my fabric online just because it is so convenient. I can wake up early in the morning when the house is quiet, huddle up in my PJs under a blanket with my coffee, and browse to my heart’s content! I make my choices and hit “send” and in a couple days my favorite UPS guy comes to my front door with a little present just for me. Not a bad deal!

I started a new quilt last week and even though I have way more fabric than I’ll ever use, I still had the urge to buy more, so I thought I’d review a few of the online stores that I like to use when buying fabric.

eQuilter is one place that I have used for many years. They have such a big selection, especially of novelty prints. If I’m looking for some unusual fabric, I can often find it here. I’ve been buying fabric from them off and on for the last ten years.

Their website is nicely laid out and pretty easy to navigate. I like that in two clicks you can get to specific categories of fabric. Then each page shows between 25 to 100 thumbnails (you can choose). The bonus is that if I want to order 10 different fabrics on that page, I can indicate my quantities and then add them to my shopping cart all in one stroke.

One thing I like about their website is that if you go to the individual page for a specific fabric, they indicate the colors used and also they also describe in words what the fabric features including approximate sizes. For instance, “This textural rendition of the classic squares and rectangles created using a loose, painterly style, is created using a monochromatic palette of rich tints and shades. Print, taller rectangles are about 2 1/4″, from the ‘Kim’s Hand Dyes, Series 2’ collection by Kim Schaefer for Andover Fabrics.”

eQuilter has several other features that are really nice. You can keep a wish list so you don’t have to buy everything at once. You can “Qmail-a-friend” if you find something that your friend would love. You can click on “Related Products” to see entire lines together. They also have a “Find This Color” tool so you can find other fabrics with the same colors. And, they have a Design Board so you can move all your swatches to one place so you can see them all at once before you order.

I recently bought some fabrics from them. They arrived in a cardboard envelope that was pretty beaten up, but the fabrics inside were wrapped in tissue paper so they were in perfect shape.

I like that each order comes with a print out of what you ordered along with a thumbnail of each fabric. That makes it easy to check that you received everything you ordered. I’ve never had a problem with mistakes from eQuilter. The printout always has a personal, handwritten note from the person who packaged your order which I think is a nice touch. I also like that they have taken the time to fold everything neatly.

In every way, eQuilter makes shopping for fabric a very pleasant experience.