Buying Fabric

Many have asked me about how I buy fabric. What do I look for? How much do I buy?

Have you noticed that most fabric stores carry mostly medium values with a few darks and lights sprinkled in. Those lights and darks are hard to find, so I’m always on the look out for them.
most of the time I buy things that catch my eye, just things I like. I buy 1/2 yard of those.

I’m always looking for good sky fabric, but maybe not what your thinking. I never buy printed sky fabric with clouds. Remember there is a repeat of those clouds on the fabric and how often do you look up in the sky and see the exact same cloud every 12 inches. It doesn’t happen in nature. So I look for sky blues or even other colors that have that moody sky feeling. Batiks and hand dye fabrics work well. Something with movement and almost never a solid. The sky is never one solid color. When I find sky fabric I might buy 1 to 2 yards.

I’m also looking for those very light fabrics the kind that are almost white. These are hard to buy on line because when photographed they appear white. They are so necessary to get the range of value I need in my pieces. I buy 1 to 2 yards of these.

I’m always on the look out for flesh colored fabrics. If you look at the differences in people you know you need lots of different flesh colored fabrics and in at least 4 values, but 6 to 8 is better. These are really hard to find so when I see them I buy 1 yard. I keep the flesh colored fabrics separated from other colors on my shelves so they are easy to find.

I’m always looking at my stash to see if there are holes or certain colors that are lacking. For me it always seems to be red. So occasionally I go to a fabric store intentionally looking to buy reds to replenish my stash. I need to always make sure I have enough to work with. There is nothing more frustrating than to not have what you want to tell the story in your art.