Shopping for Quality Upholstery Fabric

If you love bold colors, lush chenilles, and rich tapestries, then you will love today’s peek at my newest project. This one will be temporarily ‘bumping’ my four other major sewing projects due to the fact that I can do it in about a week. Also, with a few unexpected crisis like two tires and brakes to be replaced, one large cavity, and an out of commission dishwasher, we needed some extra cash—soon!  When my friend, Lee, called and asked could I make a simple Welcome banner for the church entryway, and offered to pay me generously, well, I just had to say yes of course!


The real time consuming part turned out to be finding fabric to match or at least compliment the beautiful banners already hanging in the foyer of this lovely church in Bentwater on Lake Conroe. The church is just gorgeous…and the new pastor wanted the Welcome Banner to be just as lovely.  Easter is just around the corner and he was expecting lots of members to be there, who might otherwise be traveling. 

 

 

The fabrics we had to match.

Who would have guessed that finding the right red would prove to be so time-consuming and challenging? How I wished I’d been able to bring along my good friend, Maria of Colour Me Happy. She would have taken one look down the rows of red and said..Not here! I bet she could have saved me tons of time. :o) Talk about undertones! They were the bane of my life this week! LoL!

      

Fabrics from Hobby-Lobby

I’m not used to shopping for ‘high-end’ fabrics, so today’s shopping trip (the second day of shopping I might add) was quite educational.  We visited Hobby-Lobby, Hancocks, Jo-Anns,  Fabric and More on FM1960 in Champion’s Forest, Tx.  Hobby-Lobby had the very best quality of fabric. I would buy their fabric any time. Hancocks had a great selection with lots of options for ordering. Our Jo-Anns in the Woodlands is kind of a messy store and didn’t have as much selection in the upholstery department—thought their fabric selection is super!  

I was having such a hard time finding the right red and the right quality of fabric so most of these stores just didn’t work. I did find a fabulous store in The Woodlands called Woodlands Fabric and Interiors.  (ADORE their WEBSITE!)  They had the quality I needed and a pretty good selection..but not enough. Their focus was more on re-upholstering furniture and doing interior design. It was a gorgeous store! I could have stayed there all day..but the selection was just too slim for our purposes. If only we hadn’t had to match the original banners to some degree, we could have stopped right there.

Interior Fabrics

We hit Fabric and More on 2215 FM 1960 Rd W, Houston, TX  by about 1:00pm and it had TONS of selection and great prices! I love it!! But it didn’t have truly high-quality upholstery fabric which is what I needed. I looked and looked. Talk about selection! Imagine a huge supermarket chain store and then fill it with bolts of fabric as far as the eye could see. But the quality was on par with the price. It would be perfect for drapes or costumes or pillows…but it was just not super heavy fabric. It’s had some bad reviews for their upholstery work and/or customer service..but I’ve always loved the store. I’ve been there before.  We were looking for ‘the best’ so we had to find another store. I have to say I was so grateful that the proprietor recommended we drive about five miles west to the store that finally solved our problems.

Interior Fabrics had the best of all worlds! They had gorgeous fabrics of durable quality, luscious designs and colors, super helpful people and plenty of selection. We couldn’t have asked for a better resource. And the prices were reasonable too! Finally..we found fabric that we knew would please the discriminating ladies of my friend’s church. :o)  Their homes are lovely, their church is lovely, and we wanted the banner to match. I think it will!

So Rebekah and I headed back to Bentwater to return the banners for tomorrow’s worship service, ( I took them to match colors), and we stopped at the Container store since she had never been there before and an upscale dress shop called White House Black Market which her best friend told her was ‘her shop’ and  had 'her name written all over it.'  I had to agree! But no way is she going to pay those kind of prices. She plans to get her ‘ideas’ from there and sew them herself. She was in heaven!

Here is the fabric we finally chose. I looked online and found these swathes which are the three fabrics we bought today (I believe). It's so hard to really shop for fabric online-- at least for upholstery fabric.  That last one isn't quite right..but it's close. What we bought was more reddish burgandy with hints of gold.

With a bag of fabric, we headed home so I could crash. Rebekah promised to cook dinner as I could not move one muscle. I have this funny feeling I’ll be dreaming about gorgeous fabrics all night tonight. There are certainly worse ways to spend a sleepless night..LoL!  I’m almost done with a super post on five recipes we kitchen tested for the crockpot, but since I got home at 6:30pm instead of 1:30pm, that post will have to wait for Monday morning. I think you will enjoy our experiments and the tricks we’ve learned along the way. 

Woodlands Fabric and Interiors (see the tassles and trims on the shelves beside the bed)

For tonight, I’m kicking back on the couch with hubby for a quiet evening in front of an old BBC series with a nice cup of hot tea and hoping my headache will go away soon. (I’d love to have this bedroom!)  Really, it was a day well spent though. :o) At least next time, I'll be able to drive straight to the right store…:o) Have a lovely weekend!