can it really shrink 10" UPDATE
12-06-2014, 11:10 AM
#21
Super Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 1,857
I would bet hard money they cut from 108" fabric. And the fact that they agreed to send more makes me believe that they knew that. If a brand of fabric was shrinking 10", they would go out of business. Also- if it shrank 10" widthwise, think how much it should have shrunk lengthwise!!
12-06-2014, 12:29 PM
#22
Super Member
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: California, USA
Posts: 1,318
That is really a lot of shrinkage for one piece of fabric. Bummers. Can you imagine how your quilt would have looked if you hadn't washed it before you quilted it? Oh my, I'm picturing a very small scrunched up quilt that now will fit a twin size bed. LOL (of course it wouldn't be funny if it did happen)
However, it does sound like fabric.com gave you excellent customer service in trying to rectify the problem. As they say "stuff happens."
It used to really frustrate me when I would buy fabric from JoAnn's. I would often buy fabric on speculation (for my ever growing stash pile) and would put it away. When It came time to use it, I would wash it in hot water/hot dryer and I started noticing that my yard of fabric was no longer a yard -- it would be anywhere from 2-4" shorter. Since I buy fabric from other quilt stores and fabric stores, I didn't catch on to where it was coming from. One day I found a stash of fabric still in the bags from JoAnn's (most of it was Christmas fabric, probably from the season before) and since I was working on Christmas gifts I washed most of it and used it all right away.
That's when I found out which fabric store had the fabric that shrunk so much. I measured the fabric and some pieces only measured 35 1/2". For quite a while there, I noticed that when they measured out the fabric they would actually stretch the fabric a bit. And then when they clipped it, they would sometimes would change hands, put their thumbs back where it was supposedly at the yard mark - then they would put the fabric back down and cut the yard in that divit they have on the cutting board. Also, depending on how busy the store was, they would do this really fast and were a little sloppy with their cutting. For instance, if they were really going fast, when they opened the fabric bolt to measure it, sometimes they wouldn't notice that they piece they were cutting was shorter on the top portion of the fabric, even though the bottom of the fabric measured the full 36".
A lot of fabric stores give you a skosh more than the yard you are buying to help with the natural shrinking of washing. Not JoAnn's. After that I started watching them very closely. They have seemed to relax their grip on cutting the fabric, however, once in a while I come across an old-timer with that tight grip on the fabric. If I am not sure that I got a full cut, (since I fold all of my own faric for them anyway) I will measure it out right in front of them. I am not shy about that at all. If it doesn't measure up, I will ask them to remeasure and cut me a new piece when they find that it is shy of amount asked for. After all these years I have had to do it at least a dozen times, and not all of it happened at JoAnn's. I just say "buyer beware." If your pattern calls for a yard and you only get 35 1/2", that can really screw everything up. Especially if you are on a quilting retreat up in the mountains and the closest quilt store is 15 miles away down the windie mountain road - in the rain - Yes that really happened to me. It was a white knuckle trip...
However, it does sound like fabric.com gave you excellent customer service in trying to rectify the problem. As they say "stuff happens."
It used to really frustrate me when I would buy fabric from JoAnn's. I would often buy fabric on speculation (for my ever growing stash pile) and would put it away. When It came time to use it, I would wash it in hot water/hot dryer and I started noticing that my yard of fabric was no longer a yard -- it would be anywhere from 2-4" shorter. Since I buy fabric from other quilt stores and fabric stores, I didn't catch on to where it was coming from. One day I found a stash of fabric still in the bags from JoAnn's (most of it was Christmas fabric, probably from the season before) and since I was working on Christmas gifts I washed most of it and used it all right away.
That's when I found out which fabric store had the fabric that shrunk so much. I measured the fabric and some pieces only measured 35 1/2". For quite a while there, I noticed that when they measured out the fabric they would actually stretch the fabric a bit. And then when they clipped it, they would sometimes would change hands, put their thumbs back where it was supposedly at the yard mark - then they would put the fabric back down and cut the yard in that divit they have on the cutting board. Also, depending on how busy the store was, they would do this really fast and were a little sloppy with their cutting. For instance, if they were really going fast, when they opened the fabric bolt to measure it, sometimes they wouldn't notice that they piece they were cutting was shorter on the top portion of the fabric, even though the bottom of the fabric measured the full 36".
A lot of fabric stores give you a skosh more than the yard you are buying to help with the natural shrinking of washing. Not JoAnn's. After that I started watching them very closely. They have seemed to relax their grip on cutting the fabric, however, once in a while I come across an old-timer with that tight grip on the fabric. If I am not sure that I got a full cut, (since I fold all of my own faric for them anyway) I will measure it out right in front of them. I am not shy about that at all. If it doesn't measure up, I will ask them to remeasure and cut me a new piece when they find that it is shy of amount asked for. After all these years I have had to do it at least a dozen times, and not all of it happened at JoAnn's. I just say "buyer beware." If your pattern calls for a yard and you only get 35 1/2", that can really screw everything up. Especially if you are on a quilting retreat up in the mountains and the closest quilt store is 15 miles away down the windie mountain road - in the rain - Yes that really happened to me. It was a white knuckle trip...
12-07-2014, 10:59 AM
#23
Super Member
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Chula Vista CA
Posts: 7,342
When i buy fabric I do expect to pay for what I want - but I was rather shocked when a LQS that I would go to on a fairly regular basis was going to charge me for the full price on the 3 extra inches left at the end of the bolt. Really? 1/12th of a yard? I almost asked who they shorted to get that small of an amount. I politely declined and started going elsewhere after that. Up until that point I was in there at least once a month for some reason or another. I even bought a large machine from them - but that just ticked me off. It was only $.75 or $1.00 - I am sure they made much more than that on all the fabric I was buying that day, and if it was the only piece of fabric I was buying that day it probably would not have set me off, put I was buying quite a bit and then to pull that just got to me.
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