Loss of an online fabric search engine
 

quiltshops.com now links to fabric.com. No more fabric search options through quiltshops.com :-(

Good thing I've joined the fabric moratorium so I don't need to use what was a great way to track down fabric with fast price comparisons.

I cannot find any news about this conversion. Perhaps no one was using the quiltshops search engine anymore? Anyone in here know what happened?

I've never heard of searching for fabric that way.

When I search for fabric, I just use Google (I've tried other search engines but honestly get the best results from Google). I put in the name of the fabric line, and/or designer, and/or manufacturer, and sku if I have it. Oftentimes you can find the sku on the manufacturer's website. The more info I plug into the search engine, the better my search results.

Once the search results pop up, I click on the "shopping" tab at the top of the page and it will show a thumbnail picture of the fabric along with the price and website. You can also filter the search results using options found on the left side of the page.

Actually, it links to fabricshack.com, not fabric.com (which Amazon shut down late last year).

WHOIS reports a record change of 1/4/2023 with client transfer prohibited.

Whois quiltshops.com

It's possible the original owner let the domain registration expire without renewing, and Fabric Shack purchased it, or the original owner simply sold the domain.

Thanks for a new way to search for fabrics, Peckish.

MKC -- That is great to know! and if I could edit my original message I would to say fabricshack.com, I would.

I had noticed that a couple of my favorite shops that ordinarily have pictures associated with the images of the fabric had broken links. quiltshops must have given advance notice to the folks that provided content for them.

I checked out Whois fabricshack.com and they have the same owner as quiltshops.com so perhaps fabricshack owned them all along?

Here is another alternative that can help find some fabrics....mostly currently available ones....
it's through fabshophop.com:
https://fabshophop.com/fabsearch.asp

Fabshophop is a wonderful place to disappear into for hours.

Peckish -- I tried the shopping option for the first time with google. It was fun looking at fabrics but it didn't really pull up the LQS like Over the Rainbow or Fabric Shack. Lots of Spoon Flower and Wayfair fabrics.... I tend to search for novelty fabrics and don't know what may be out there and the quiltshops.com site was great for finding individual LQS with their stashes.

I was looking for something a week or so ago and found the same thing. So disappointed. I had much better luck with quiltshops . com than I ever did with the fabshophop one, although I check both (as well as etsy) when I'm looking for something specific, especially if it's not a current line.

Thanks for letting us know. I’ve used Quiltshops.com for about 20 years.

I’m glad I found this thread - but distraught. I used that search engine ALL THE TIME! It was great for helping me track down out of print fabric that a Google search wouldn’t find. If anyone has found a comparable search engine, please let me know. So sad 😭

Quiltshops.com shutdown on December 31. Fabric Shack did purchase the domain name (after it was shutdown). They are not sure at this time what they are going to do with it. I messaged them to find this out.

I was trying to search for shops that have a large amount of Kaffe Fasset/Philip Jacobs/Brandon Mably fabrics and sell either fat quarters or 1/4 yards. I used to use Quiltshops.com for things like this :(

cdmiree - I haven't seen anything like it. :( There's fabshophop.com, but I've never had good luck with that.

oh2sew - thanks for actually checking into it and letting us know. I already miss it, having tried to find it a couple of times since the change. Drat.

I never had good luck with fabshophop either. Sad that quiltshops.com is no longer in service. It was a great fabric finder and comparison shopping tool. It will be missed.

Not quite on topic, but I was disappointed recently to see that Fabric Shack had made major revisions to their website. No more buying fabric by decimal (which allowed the purchase of as little as 1/8 yd.). Now it is the more usual 1/4 yd. increments, though it's nice that they still allow purchase of 1/4 yd., plus they have a fat quarter option now, too. But I'll miss my 1/3 yd option, which is what I used most often. Also, the site is more slow-moving now, and they've eliminated the listing of collections by newest to oldest, which made shopping nice and quick because it was easy to remember what you'd already looked at. I haven't checked to see if they've revised their color search engine, which was excellent before.

What about Thousandsofbolts.com?

thousands of bolts is a great place to go if you want to search by color. Otherwise, I don't find a lot of different novelty type fabrics that pop up on the search. That doesn't mean they don't have them. Their search engine is geared to colors. My favorite shops, because they have great search engines and stock a lot of fabric, are Over the Rainbow and eQuilter. Hancock's of Paducah is a good one, too. The joy of the quiltshop.com website was finding sales for the fabrics I was hoping to find. Going through fabshophop store by store searching takes a really long time. However, you can create a list of favorite shops that you can go back to check with especially if you noted why you were making it a favorite for your list.

For months I've kept trying to log into quiltshops.com with no luck so I was very happy to find this post. I wish I'd found it sooner. I loved quiltshops.com as I often search for fabric by theme such as science, computer, moose, farm, etc. That way I could find prints in multiple shops with just a single search. I've tried the FabHopShop but it isn't very good for me. I find I often now go to a website like Etsy or Ebay to search for what I want. Ibex94 mentioned some good shops, all of which I've used. On Over the Rainbow you used to be able to order fractions of a yard like 5/8 although I'm not sure if they went smaller than 1/2 yd. I haven't tried this lately so I don't know if it still works or not. They seem to have two websites and it only worked on their older site.

I do like Etsy as sellers often offer free shipping on orders over $35. It isn't hard to get to $35 any more and that allows me to get an extra piece of fabric for almost free. In other words if my order is $30 and they add $8 for shipping for a total of $38, I may as well add another piece of fabric to my cart to get a total of $35 or $36 and I get more fabric for less month. That's my kind of shopping. Most quilt shops don't offer the free shipping unless orders are at least $75 - 100.

I haven't been on here for a couple years but I am reminded that I need to check this site out far more often. There is so much good information here. Thanks for all the previous posts.

Hi Wildernessties -- Over the Rainbow has eliminated their first/older website now. As busy as they are, I am surprised they kept both websites up and running as long as they did.

I was going to vent about Keepsakequilting.com in the personal section, but here seems appropriate! I ordered 15 pieces of fabric, several wide backings 2 1/2 yards because none of my 2 yard pieces were long enough. One was a green one for backing shell quilt. Only 12 pieces arrived. Called. "Oh, those are backordered. They will arrive probably in April."!! They were nice and gave me a $20 discount/refund for my troubles.
Ok. So, I chose a different wide back that did arrive and started sandwiching quilt. It was 2 yards 9 inches! I didn't check/measure the fabrics when they arrived. Called again. They are sending a replacement 2 1/2 yards. I miss fabric.com. I expect to receive what I pay for. Who checks that their fabric is cut accurately?

I don't usually measure what I get but maybe I should check. I have measured occasionally and didn't find a problem. I'd never heard of keepsakequilting.com. I've had very good luck with Over the Rainbow, Hancocks (although they are a bit slow to ship) and the many shops I've purchased from on Etsy. I like Etsy shops as most offer free shipping over $35 purchase.