Fabric is the largest recurring expense for a sewing business. Once you start sewing professionally, handling every part of the work in a more professional way includes organizing how you buy and use fabric. Good organization makes the work easier and saves you useless extra expense.
Fabric is inspiring, and buying it is exciting. The urge to pick up new and beautiful cloth whenever you come across it can be irresistible. The practical side of your mind needs a say as well, so that every fabric you buy is used in the most efficient way. This post covers how to plan purchases, how to tell impulse buying from a need, how to use what you buy, and how to save money. For the full list of what a sewing business needs to start, see what you need to start a sewing business.
Buy With a Plan
Keep in mind what you need, and tell it apart from impulse buying. Whenever you buy fabric, try to do it with a plan in mind. This does not mean every purchase has to be decided in advance. Visiting your favorite fabric shop or browsing online and not feeling inspired to buy would be a loss. Buy by all means, but with a plan. As long as you can see yourself using the fabric for current and forthcoming projects, it is all good. When you go to the fabric store for a particular requirement, stick to the plan as much as possible.
Make a Plan
Think about how you plan other shopping, such as groceries. You make a list of what you need, take stock of what is needed right away and in the near future, check what is already at home, and often develop the list over a few days as new needs come up.
Do the same when buying fabric. Work out what you need. If you are buying fabric for a specific project, do the math before you buy: the fabric and accessories needed for one item, multiplied by the number of items you plan to make. Include zippers, buttons, thread, ribbons and everything else the project uses.
Buy Small Quantities to Test
When you are still deciding, buy a very small quantity of the fabric you like and keep it in your shop for a few days. Say you like a particular theme, print or pattern. Once you are sure you like it, test it against the project you have in mind. Will customers like it? Commit to making a certain number of items with the chosen fabric, then decide how much of the fabric and accessories to buy. If orders for more items come in, buy more.
The same approach works when you love a fabric but do not know exactly what it is for. Buy a small quantity and keep it in plain view. When the need for it comes around, buy the amount required.
Think About What You Already Have
Every time you are tempted to buy new fabric, think about the fabric you already have and whether it could serve the purpose.
Are You Buying Too Much Fabric?
It is hard not to find fabric irresistible, and that is a big part of why many people sew. These are some classic signs of buying more than you need:
- You buy more fabric than you know what to do with.
- You buy on impulse without letting the practical side interfere.
- You have shelves full of fabric you loved but never used.
- Every sale and offer is a call to buy.
- You go to the fabric store more often than you need to.
Not all of these are bad. Going to a fabric store just to look for inspiration is fine. Buying fabric you love without knowing exactly what you will use it for is also fine, as long as you know it will be used for one project or another. When a business is running, cutting unnecessary expenses becomes necessary. With customer satisfaction and profit in mind, fabric buying habits become more disciplined, in line with the needs of the sewing business.
Build a Useful Stash
Collect Fabric
Managing fabric is not only about controlling purchases. It is also about having what you need when you need it, without running to the store. That means building a stash. Buy the basics you often need in advance, for future use.
Buy Enough for Inspiration
You need to feel inspired and creative to deliver your best work, and fabric you love is a good source of ideas. It makes sense to keep a stock of fabric in your shop that inspires you to make great projects.
This helps most if you make a particular craft often. For example, if you make bags, you know you will use fabric for the lining or leather for embellishments, and you will have favorite solids or patterns. Someone who quilts will want a stash of certain patterns and prints. Keeping a stash of your favorite and useful fabrics where you can see them gives you inspiration every day.
Use What You Buy
Use the Whole Yardage
This is a useful fabric management tactic, though not everyone can practice it. It works best when you have a clear idea behind a particular fabric. For example, you see a fabric you love and decide to make a “spring collection” from it. You create a range of items, big and small, until the whole yardage is used. This is not always possible, and many people find it hard to manage.
The good news is that fabric can be stored and used another time for something else. Do not let this become a habit, or your shelves will soon fill with leftover fabric.
Mix and Match Leftovers
When your fabric shelves overflow, take a creative look at what you have. Mixing and matching colors and textures can create special crafts, and maybe even a special niche. Work out good ways to combine the fabric you have, and you can make very interesting and novel items. For ideas, read how to coordinate fabrics.
Make Patterns More Frugal
You can save a surprising amount of fabric by removing an extra pocket or reducing the length by an inch. Look for ways to adjust your patterns so that they use less fabric without affecting the look or usefulness of the craft. See how to do more with patterns.
Ways to Save Money on Fabric
These are simple ways to save money the next time you buy fabric or other sewing supplies for your business.
Shop Sales and Offers With Vouchers
Time your purchases to coincide with sales and offers. It helps to know what the business needs regularly, so you can make future purchases at sale prices. This is not easy to know in advance, especially in a new business. Work around it by deciding what you need first and then looking for an offer on it. Keep a list of the fabric and accessories you will need in future, so you can use a sale when it comes. Collect discount vouchers and take them along whenever you shop.
Deals and offers come second to a planned approach. It is good to get a discount on fabric you need. It is not good to spend money on fabric you did not need because it was on offer.
Shop Online and Join Newsletters
Some of the best deals are in online stores, including marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon, Etsy and Craigslist. Join the newsletters of stores, and of sewing-related business-to-business sites, to be notified of new offers. Use Etsy for buying as well as selling. Many craft supplies are sold there by other makers, the kind you may never find in a local store.
Open Wholesale Accounts
At first you may be unsure about buying wholesale, because you cannot predict future sales. Once you have a selling history, start buying supplies wholesale. The minimum order is small with many vendors, and many are willing to open a wholesale account and give wholesale rates for a few meters of fabric or a few dozen buttons. Do not hold back from asking about wholesale prices because the order seems too small. Ask each supplier what documents it needs to open an account.
Quality Comes Before Price
Fabric quality is very important. Compromising a little on quality is excusable when sewing for fun, but not when sewing to sell. If you get everything else right, you can charge a good price for what you sew while giving the customer great quality, so cheaper fabric should come second to quality. People can spot bad fabric, especially those who look for handmade items.
Even if you can sell poorer quality at a low price, do not do it. That is not the reputation to build for a business, and the practice does more harm than good in the long run. Getting a cheaper deal on fabric always comes second to getting the right fabric for the project.
Once the fabric is bought, the next step is to sew items that sell. See what to sew to sell, and for all the posts in this section, how to start a sewing business from home.
