Originally Posted by
FroggyinTexas
My experience with quilt shop fabric is that some of it is twice as expensive and half as good as fabric sold by JoAnn, Hobby Lobby or even Wal Mart. Wherever you buy fabric, you've got to be knowledgeable enough to read and understand the end of the bolt and to know by the feel (called "hand") whether what you are getting is good enough quality to spend your money on. I am becoming more and more cautious about buying even well-known brands of fabric. I never pre-wash anything and now that color catchers are available, never worry too much about colors running. My mother always prewashed everything because in the old days, fabric sometimes shrank 10 percent. froggyintexas
Amen, to what Froggy said! If folks want to pay $12+ a yard and feel they're getting better quality, more power to them! However, you can find some of that EXACT same fabric for less $, if you try. Thousands of Bolts has many of the same fabrics, for roughly $5 a yard. Yes, the EXACT ones. TOB carries great and not-so-great fabric, so it helps to stick with the brands you know.
Most of my fabric comes from either TOB or Hobby Lobby. Our two local WalMarts used to carry nice fabric (at great prices) but they seem to have changed their marketing policy, in the fabric section. Now there seems to be more lower-quality stuff and when I do find something nice (at WM), it's more expensive than at Hobby Lobby. :-(