Welcome to Shabby Fabrics! We are a small online fabric shop offering high quality fabrics, supplies, sewing patterns and custom sewing services.
Our Story
Shabby Fabrics was founded in 2015 by Susan Thompson, an avid sewer and quilter. As a busy wife and mother of three, Susan enjoyed crafting in her spare time. She often struggled finding reasonably priced fabric in unique prints for her projects at local shops. Ordering online helped access better selection and pricing, but delivery was slow and return shipping costly if fabric quality wasn’t right.
After doing some market research, Susan realized other sewing enthusiasts faced similar challenges. She dreamt of opening an online fabric store catering to crafters like her. After discussing it with her supportive husband Mark, Susan decided to take a chance and turn her passion into a business. With substantial upfront investments and Mark’s help, Shabby Fabrics was born!
In the beginning, Susan ran the business out of her basem*nt, storing bolts of fabric on shelves behind her sewing station. That first year she did everything herself – purchasing inventory, photographing fabrics, updating the website, packing shipments and delivering orders to the post office each evening after dinner.
Business was slow to take off. Susan credits developing relationships with customers through social media groups for steadily increasing traffic and sales. As members of quilting, sewing and crafting communities shared photos of their creations using Shabby Fabrics’ prints, she gained more happy, loyal followers.
Today Shabby Fabrics is thriving thanks to delighting customers with pretty fabrics at reasonable prices shipped quickly. Susan eventually moved operations out of her house into a small warehouse. She now employs two part-time staff to help manage orders and a local seamstress to sew custom items. While still a small business, Shabby Fabrics continues to grow thanks to spreading the word about goods and service within the crafting community.
Why We Started This Business
Susan started Shabby Fabrics to share her passion for sewing by helping fellow crafters. Key motivations included:
Offering Wide Selection: Susan was on a mission to give seamstresses access to a wider variety of quality fabrics offline retailers couldn’t stock.
Keeping Costs Low: She buys factory direct to control pricing and makes strategic deals with suppliers to run frequent sales. Her goal is keeping average fabric prices under $10/yard.
Emphasizing Quality: Each fabric is carefully hand-selected by Susan to ensure vibrant, high quality prints that perform beautifully.
ProvidingFast Shipping: With quick order processing and priority mail, most ship within 24 hours!
Sharing Knowledge: Interacting over social media allows Susan to hear what crafters want while sharing sewing tips and inspiration.
Sharing Savings: Passing bulk purchase savings directly onto customers means every order helps seamstresses save money to fund more projects!
Friendly Service: Susan strives to make every order feel like helping out a friend expand her sewing stash!
Our Fabrics
We hand-pick fabrics with the needs of sewing, quilting and craft enthusiasts in mind across categories like:
Quilting Cottons: Our most popular style with countless colorful and playful prints perfect for quilts or apparel at under $10/yard.
Flannels: Super soft cotton flannels in baby prints, plaid and buffalo check patterns starting around $8/yard.
Knits: Stretchy cotton knits, French terries and spandex blends for making comfy apparel starting at $6/yard.
Home Decor Fabrics: Charming prints like florals and geometrics for accent pillows, curtains and upholstery projects priced between $12-15/yard.
Seasonal Fabrics: Themed holiday prints released each season for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter crafts.
Basics: Value priced muslins, broadcloths and solids for base layers and prototypes.
Notions: To complement fabrics we sell notions like thread, elastic, ribbons, appliques, trims and more so makers have all supplies needed for their projects!
Our Guarantee
We stand behind every order with significant investments in inventory, committed staff and robust ecommerce infrastructure to provide customers exceptional service including:
Inventory Depth: We maintain over 2 million yards of fabric on-hand worth over $2M to ship quickly, while still securing special orders for those wanting designs we don’t stock.
Order Accuracy: We apply meticulous quality control – checking each order 3 times – to ensure you receive exactly what was ordered.
Fast Processing: We ship within 24 business hours given in-stock status thanks to streamlined fulfillment practices.
Generous Returns: If fabric appearance, quality or other attributes don’t match expectations, returns are accepted within 60 days for refund or exchange.
Free Shipping: We offer free shipping for orders over $99 to continental US. Additional charges apply for expedited shipping.
Secure Shopping: Our platform is certified PCI compliant using top data security solutions to protect payment and personal information.
Last Mile Care: From our warehouse to your door, every order is carefully packaged to prevent damage and lost shipments.
Ongoing Support: Our passionate customer care team promptly responds to questions and concerns via chat, email or phone during business hours.
Community Engagement: We actively listen and respond to feedback through social media and review sites to continuously improve.
Sustainability: We ship orders in recyclable packaging and use eco-friendly fulfillment supplies whenever viable options exist.
Our Services
Beyond selling fabrics and notions for made-to-order projects, we also provide:
Custom Sewing: Our talented seamstress can sew customized items like clothing, home decor pieces, bags, accessories and more. Submit project requests through our order form for bespoke creations made from your choice of our in-stock fabrics.
Sewing Patterns: We offer digital downloads of hundreds of sewing patterns from leading designers. Patterns accommodate all skill levels and cover apparel, accessories, decor and quilts.
Machine Quilting: Looking to finish up that quilt top? Our long arm quilting services create beautiful designs across your quilt sandwiches quickly for a reasonable price.
Fabric Cutting: Tired of prepping fabric before starting that big project? Let us take care of the tedious work of squaring, cutting and bundling yardage to your requested sizes so it’s ready to sew.
Fabric Swatches: Unsure how a print looks in person? Order free fabric swatches to see colors, texture and drape firsthand before purchase.
Gift Cards: Stuck on what to buy your crafty friend? Shabby Fabrics e-gift cards make the perfect present they can use to pick fabrics or supplies they really want.
Core Values
Shabby Fabrics exists to enrich maker’s lives through fabrics. We live this mission through core values including:
Inspiring Creativity: We believe creating with your own hands is therapeutic and satisfying while building confidence. Our fabrics aim to kindle creative passion for sewing.
Spreading Joy: Our vibrant prints and friendly service seek to spark smiles during life’s ups and downs. We take pride in delighting customers.
Embracing Individuality: No two makers or projects are alike. We celebrate self-expression and diversity through offering unique fabrics.
Building Community: While shopping online lacks the social element of quilting circles or sewing groups, we foster community through social media engagement and supporting charities.
Promoting Mindfulness: We view sewing as meditative. Our hope is fabrics propel makers to carve out mindful moments creating amidst life’s busyness.
Nurturing Relationships: We get to know regular customers personally and support their endeavors like business launches, new babies and major life events.
Respecting Planet: From sustainable materials, donating scraps to responsibly packaging orders, we continually refine operations to reduce environmental impact.
Honoring Staff: Our success hinges on an empowered team. We strive to support work-life balance, professional growth and open communication.
Meet Our Team!
Shabby Fabrics remains a small business with under 10 staff. Get to know our tight-knit crew:
Susan Thompson, Owner & Founder – Susan steers company strategy while keeping tabs on customers. She still selects new fabrics, photographs samples, tests projects, creates tutorials, manages social media and helps with order fulfillment!
Mark Thompson, Co-Owner – Susan credits her husband Mark, a contractor, with building Shabby Fabrics literally and figuratively. He constructed trade show displays, our first website and our current warehouse. He lifts heavy shipments creating our vintage industrial vibe and negotiates with suppliers.
Lisa Clark, Operations Manager – Lisa keeps orders flowing as our inventory control and logistics wizard. She tracks stock levels, places purchase orders with vendors and oversees packing and shipping execution. Lisa’s also Susan’s right hand support for marketing projects and vendor negotiations.
Katie Lewis, Customer Experience Associate – Katie fields customer inquiries with stellar product knowledge and charming communication style via phone, email and chat. She also assists Susan with photography and social media content creation.
Amanda Jones, Fulfillment Associate – Amanda ensures accuracy pulling and carefully packing orders with amazing speed and precision. She also helps test sewing projects and provides creative feedback to Susan on fabric selection.
Grace Chang, Contract Seamstress – Grace is our secret weapon for stitching custom creations! As a professional seamstress for over 20 years, she crafts our sewing patterns and samples. Grace also sews custom apparel, quilts, home decor items and accessories ordered through our site.
That’s our fabulous team committed to delivering exceptional service to every customer, big or small. We genuinely appreciate the support of our growing maker community and wouldn’t be here without YOU!
