Five Unexpected Places to Find Fabric and Sewing Supplies!

well hello shiny crafty people it's Tim Totton here and welcome back to the channel while in I'm in my workshop right now a place where you would expect to find fabric and sewing supplies I want to talk to you about five fantastic places that I have found to get Fabric and tools and other sewing items that you might not expect so let's get into it all right number one is one of my go-to places when I need something smaller quick it's called The Dollar Tree now here in the United States this is a series of stores that sell items for right now it of 2024 a125 per item in the store and so they have all kinds of great stuff now it is actually a place to buy fabric uh my Dollar Tree has fat quarters available they also have ribbon of all kinds in sort of their crafting section but they also sell ribbon that is specific for certain holidays as the holidays approach so if it's almost Valentine's Day they have you know heart ribbons and they have red ribbon and it changes through the year Easter uh Halloween Christmas that sort of thing they also sell things like uh fabric glue so this is great fabric uh tacky glue that you can use for either doing crafting or for glue basting your sewing um they also sell a number of other tools that you might use um I found some great storage containers that were actually meant for Planters if you'd like you can check out any of the videos on my channel I'll put one up here up here for you to click on on and these are videos about the great finds that I found at the Dollar Tree I try to make a video of that every couple of months uh and they also sell things that you might not expect because if if you needed uh maybe some some uh things to make bags or other devices and you need d-rings or you need Clips well guess what they're the same kind of things that are used on dog collars and if you only bought one or two at a typical fabric store they would cost a bit of money but if you buy them at the dollar tree already connected to some webbing as a dog or cat collar you can then take those things off and for just $125 you usually got a clip and a d-ring and a couple other things that you can use uh in making a bag or some other item now the next place is actually a couple of different stores um in my area these this type of store is usually either a TJ Max or a Ross they're typically uh Department type stores that sell mostly clothing and homegood and those kind of things and they do a lot of closeout so they'll get things from other manufacturers and then sell them in limited quantities so your uh your store may have a different uh actual items than my store but the kind of items they have are going to be about the same so I recently went to TJ Maxx and found a couple things I really liked obviously if you want a better selection of kitchen towels so that you can make some of the great crafts on my channel and you'll see I've just put up in the description above where I uh showed you how to make a a boa out of kitchen towels you can hang it around your neck but also uh other items made out of kitchen towels like we did a a tea towel pillow I'll put some links in the description below for those videos so you can check them out also they have one of the things that you don't think about is where do you buy big enough fabric to do backings for quilts well one of the secrets that my grandmothers taught me when they taught me how to sew is they made so many quilts every year dozens sometimes 40 or 50 together and they gave so many of those away to uh one of the local orphanages that they would use sheets they would buy sheet sets of decent sheet Fabric and use that as the backing of their quilts so they wouldn't have to go buy the super wide backing fabric that can be quite expensive in places like TJ Maxx Ross HomeGoods other places sell discounted versions of those uh sheets sets that you might spend a lot of money for elsewhere but you can get these big pieces of fabric with interesting designs they also had their at my TJX some really great mostly see-through or opaque shower curtains and this is for a project where you might need a nonporous fabric specifically some kind of a heavier vinyl or nylon and they had some really great ones and they weren't even more than $20 and if you needed that much plastic that's malleable and not going to crack or break well it might be hard to find at a fabric store I also found some great in the kitchen section I found some clips I also found oh my goodness these zippered bags that I really love that are um reusable sand sandwich bags but I got to tell you I'm going to use them for a lot of other stuff in my Sewing Studio when I have small projects that need to be put together or if I need to hold some um Notions that I'm going to like carry with me somewhere it's nice rather than having to have a full box you can have a little bag to put that in and even so much as if you're doing some different projects with small amounts of elastic you could use hair ties as those pieces of elastic when we were doing um so many fabric face masks in 2020 at the beginning of that you couldn't find elastic anywhere and so many of us figured out how to use hair ties for the elastic now the last couple of these are rather untraditional and I'm going to tell you you may have your favorite hardware store but number three is in fact the hardware store things you might normally uh think about only as how do you fix up your house could actually be used in sewing and fabric so imagine depending on the project you're doing you might want a tarp Fabric and they've got huge amounts of it for relatively inexpensive amounts of money they also do big fabric paint drop cloths and they're a nice fabric especially if you're trying to do a project where you need to figure out a pattern and see how it works you could test it out with that type of material and you haven't spent a crazy amount of money also uh different things like fixtures that you might need to get your sewing room ready and of course tables for your sewing room but also specialty cutting implements especially small little knives and little razor blades that you can use uh when a rotary cutter just doesn't work and probably better better than everything else if you're going to stand on your feet a lot especially around a big cutting table would be fatigue mats uh speaking of fatigue mats I went into one specialty store that's not exactly a hardware store here in Central Florida and I know they have these in various parts of the country it's a gigantic store called Rural King it's hard to say Rural King it's sort of a cross between like a farm store and a hardware store and a Walmart and like a Bass Pro Shop there so much it goes into these places I found fatigue mats there on sale I thought it was a really good deal they have them both en rolled fatigue mats or in the squares that you can hook together and I got to tell you we run a workshop every day with people sewing every day and having fatigue mats on the floor has made a huge difference so we already owned them but if I needed more I know exactly where I would be going they also had an entire section of gloves different kind of gloves even some of the type of gloves that don't allow you to cut through them and I'm going to tell you I have said it many times if you're using a rotary cutter and you value your fingers recognize you will cut yourself at some point with a rotary cutter uh and so you really should be wearing on your non-cutting hand you know you hold the cutter with one hand Pretend This is a rotary cutter you need to have on this hand a glove that has metal in it and can't be cut through specifically a kind that is sold that particular way they also have big tarps that are made of canvas I really liked this actually because I thought if I was making sort of a a really rough and tumble bag for somebody that was going to put it through a lot of abuse I would get one of these canvas tarps and use that fabric and I trust me I priced out how much this canvas taupe uh these canvas things were way cheaper than the same exact canvas at the fabric store speaking of I go to uh even just a standard store like uh like a typical department store and go to the section for all the automotive stuff or for the hardware stuff looking for zip ties they have maybe three or four options at Rural King they had an entire display of every type of size and color of zip tie you might possibly need what a great thing to have there I was also impressed by the different cases and boxes they had both rolling cases and cases that had onboard electricity and cases that had Chargers built in and things that you might be able to turn into a crafting or sewing case not only a handled ones but ones that roll around you know I wandered through uh Rural King and I was completely amazed did I say Tractor Supply a minute ago I get the two mixed up but royal king is definitely bigger Tractor Supply would have some of these things as well but I was in Rural King and I was going through all the sections and I happened into the section for horses and I not for horses to come shop in but for people who own horses and what I found interesting I'm going to put a picture of it I found leather laces for a really inexpensive price considering how much leather was there in the different colors and what was available I have looked at these for another different project that I was helping the scouts with um and and they were expensive at the fabric store and the selection was limited here I could buy an entire set of this and it was actually pretty inexpensive along with some other leather items that were in that same section so it always helps to be looking for other things and finally I found a really cool set of stacking uh con stacking sort of organizing containers and they were very much like the ones that I got at uh the Dollar Tree they weren't shaped like this they're round so I'll show you the video of them now they're round but they fit down into a 5G bucket and when you turn them in opposite direction then they can stack on top of each other what a great way to have all of these things together and if you're feeling kind of fun with it why not make a padded seat to go on top of that five gallon bucket you know get up by the lid that goes with the bucket make a Fab a padded seat that goes on top and then you got an extra sort of seat uh anywhere you go so if you took all of your supplies to some kind of a a sewing event or elsewhere or maybe you're going to the your kids's house and carrying your sewing machine you put all your supplies in this you'd also have a little seat uh for you to take with you a great place too to put next to your sewing machine so the grandkids can jump on and and watch what you're doing and maybe learn as you pass it on to another generation so the last unusual place that I would suggest you go looking for sewing Fabric and supplies is some place you may not have thought about but it's the thrift store and the reason I say this is not not just because of course there might be fabric there but there are plenty of interesting Notions now I got to tell you I get I don't have it with me here I should have brought one here I have all of these bags that I get at trade shows and conventions that I go to and virtually every single one of them of the nicer bags has some kind of a zipper and webbing for handles and other things like here's an example of what one might look like well those usually get tossed out by people so sometimes they end up in thrift stores or bag for other things end up in thrift stores other pieces of luggage that might not be doing so great well that's a great place to get zippers especially really really long zippers so you just grab your you just grab out your uh steam Ripper and go to town freeing that big long zipper that might normally cost you a couple of dollars or more at the fabric store from that thrifted item that you only paid a dollar or two for now here's another interesting thing you can do if you don't see fabric at your thrift store it doesn't mean it doesn't exist it means that maybe the thrift store doesn't know what to do with it and so they don't put it out because they don't want people pawing through all that fabric and they don't know a way to label it all so people do try to donate those things to thrift stores what you should do is go see the manager of your favorite thrift store make sure it's a place that you go relatively often and and they know who you are so it doesn't seem like you're just coming out of the blue and ask them to keep an eye out for fabric or other sewing notions that might come through the doors things that might be donated but they would normally turn away and and if you offer to say hey if you'll let me know when you have a donation like that I'd be willing to come down and tell you what anything of it has value and purchase some of the items that I'd want myself it would give them a reason to actually put those items out for people to see if you let them know that you're something you're actually interested well that is it that is five amazing and unexpected places that you can find fabric and other sewing notions I bet you didn't think of at least one or two of those as a place that you might find some something to use in your sewing Workshop so I hope you take advantage of these ideas go check out all the things that are available and maybe now when you go into some of these different types of stores that maybe don't you won think about as being a place to find fabric or sewing tools or Notions you might actually start seeing things with a little different eye I know I was completely Amazed by what I found when I actually started looking closer I hope you take try out these ideas and uh let me know how it goes what you find either in the comments of this video or you can go into the description of this video and find the link to my Facebook page or the Facebook group that we've created called shiny crafty people and tell me what kind of things you made I'd love to see what you're working up with some unconv condition yeah I'd love to see what you're working on with some unconventional fabrics and tools and sewing notions that you find at these unexpected places so until next time folks stay crafty bye for now all right I'm going to try to go to a completely different store next time and see if I can't find something completely different H I think I will wish me luck

Channel: Timothy Totten

Views: 142,174

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Id: r4nT7NNeRXk

Length: 13min 42sec (822 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 13 2024