littlehud

That is just plain silly. Why would they sell half a tree skirt. You were lucky enough to have someone in the know to let you know, but think of all those poor people who thought they were getting the full skirt.

wvdek

"this is just plain silly" about sums it up.

I have never heard or seen half a tree skirt being sold.

Only thing I can think of is the clerk thought she was right or, it was half a skirt for those half trees that sit flat against the wall. However, it should have stated that somewhere.

ctmhjenn

hahahahahah I never would have thought of that, but that is a fantastic idea...HALF a tree skirt, for HALF a tree. Love it! I think I will go tell Jacque that at Joann's, she will really get a kick out of that. hahahah I am still laughing.

Tiffany

Good grief! I have to wonder if this is a new way to try and make money in a down economy. :|

daisyboo9

I have to laugh, this story reminds me of what my mom used to say all the time.....its for a half a**ed job.
You would buy half a tree skirt to do a half a**ed job on it.
Sorry, but it just struck me as really funny.

ctmhjenn

I have to wonder if that is the truth. Why would ANYONE only sell half a skirt. That just doesn't make sense to me. I am putting it together tonight with my daughter, I will t ake a picture of it so you all can see. I'll fold it so you can see HALF a skirt too...

grammatjr

How very disappointing. Obviously someone did not do their job right. I would take it back. No one should expect HALF of the fabric!

This reminds me of a purchase I made at Walmart one time. It was a panel of an American flag. And someone had cut it wrong last time, so when the person helping me went to cut one panel - it was with the blue field at the bottom of the stripes! I had to really argue to get her to toss the fabric in the center, and begin my cut so the blue was ABOVE the stripes!

ctmhjenn

Sometimes I wonder what kind of a test they have to pass to work in the fabric department. I know that it took me time to figure out 8's on a measure, but once I did, it was great. I am sure that this gal was just not thinking. The first lady that did the cut was the one that was NOT thinking. Hope she did what you asked. Joanie

Favorite Fabrics

In our shop we have carried several tree skirt panels, and they way they're printed is that they are in half-circles, and you need two half-circles in order to make a full tree skirt. We'd never sell just one half-circle (how silly!); we sell them as a unit which includes two half-circles, and describe it as such. And, of course, it makes the retail price "scary-high", until you read the details and find out that the unit includes TWO yards of fabric, and then the price makes sense.

But of course, it makes you wonder why the fabric manufactures don't just print it as one full circle. And the answer to that probably lies in the nature of the printing process.

Fabrics today are generally printed using rotating cylindrical drums, each of which contains the design for a single color. (So if a fabric has 12 different colors on it, there will be 12 cylinders needed to produce the pattern.) Commonly the cylinders are either 24" or 36" in circumference, and the length will be 44" or 60" or whatever the width of the fabric is. Those troublesome tree skirt panels are usually on 60" wide fabric, and each half-circle is printed on one yard of cloth. If they were to print it as a full circle, then they'd need to have cylinders that were 60" in circumference. It might be that nobody makes cylinders that big, or perhaps such big cylinders would not fit onto the printing machine... or, if they did, well, you couldn't fit as many cylinders onto it, so then you could not have as many colors in the finished design. This is just a semi-educated guess; if any readers have experience in the screen-printing business they might be able to answer more surely. Anyway... I'm attaching a picture that I found online of one of these printing machines so you can get an idea of what they look like.

As to why a store would price it per-repeat, that would probably be for two reasons: first, if they priced it per two-yard unit it makes the price very high, and second (and more likely, I think) is that the sales staff and customers are used to seeing fabric priced per yard, and there'd be confusion all around if it was priced per some other unit. You'd have to have thoroughly well-trained staff to be able to deal with some fabrics being sold by-the-yard and others by different units. Ummm... from reading all the posts... I'd say that would not be very likely to happen at the chain stores. Regrettably.

As I recall, all the times I've shopped in the chains, fabrics are priced by the yard only. And if you're buying a print with, say, blocks of animals on it, and you don't want your bunnies beheaded, it's up to you to tell the clerk what fraction of a yard you want to buy. Otherwise they'll just cut the fabric wherever the scissors land.

In our store, for any fabric that has a design such that you wouldn't want it cut "randomly", we price and sell it per pattern repeat, so that our customers don't ever have to pay for unusable bits. That means some prints are sold by the foot, or by the 2/3 yard repeat. And yes, the staff does have to be "on their toes", paying attention when they cut the fabric... but I'm blessed to have smart, alert, conscientious workers. They're well-trained, and we always have plenty of coffee, tea, and chocolate available to help maintain alertness. (Tee-hee!)

bearisgray

Thanks - that is helpful and interesting.

One time I was at a fabric store - don't remember which one now - and I wanted the fabric cut at a certain spot because of the design - I didn't know the EXACT fraction I wanted - so I asked the clerk "Cut it and measure it"

Didn't seem like she could do that - - - she said "I have to know the amount before I cut it " - - the tickets are written up or printed up AFTER the fabric is cut so for the life of me I was not able to see the problem with measuring the piece AFTER it was cut.