Hey y’all – today I want to talk with you about how to buy fabric online – particularly for clothing. I’m going to talk about Mood Designer Fabrics specifically since they’re the official fabric sponsor for the Winter Wonderland collection – but rest assured that I was in love with Mood and purchased fabrics from them well before they agreed to sponsor this collection – so all opinions here are 100% mine.
When shopping online at Mood or anywhere, I’m usually shopping for more than one fabric and I want them to coordinate. I’ve tried several methods to see my fabrics together, from secret Pinterest boards to copying/pasting fabric images together in a Photoshop document. So one of the things I LOVE about shopping with Mood is their mood boards.
When you’re on their site, you can see this My Mood Board icon on the top right.
And when you click on it and you’re logged into your account, you get to the screen you’re seeing in the bottom half of my shot, where it will save fabric swatches to a virtual pinboard.
To pin a fabric, you look for the pushpin icon when you’re viewing any fabric – it will be on the bottom left of your fabric swatch. Click that, choose your board, and save.
Voila! You can now see your pinned fabrics side by side. You can even drag them around and re-arrange them to play with color combinations.
To get links back to your fabric choices, make sure you click the “Show Product Info” box at the bottom of your board. Oh, and if you do any re-arranging, make sure to hit “Save Board” before you click off the page.
But my favorite feature of this board is that you can upload photos to it. This was perfect for me to make sure my fabrics were going to match the Minnetonka Moccasin (sponsored) shoes I was ordering.
So here’s my Winter Wonderland fabric board.
You can see I grouped fabrics into what I was going to be using for different outfits.
So, let’s go through the fabrics
For Bean’s look I used:
1. Navy Stretch Sateen
2. Nutmeg Faux Leather
3. Blue Checked Cotton Shirting
4. Beige Fleece
5. Olive Beige Denim
For Tater’s look I used:
6. Heather Beige Wool Coating
7. Cream Cotton Shirting (that I dyed orange)
8. Taupe Poly Satin (for the jacket lining)
9. Navy Denim
And for Baby Girl’s look I used:
10. Mud Suiting
11. Magenta Poly Satin
12. Anna Sui Silk Cotton Voile
I have to say – the Silk Cotton Voile, the Heather Beige Wool Coating and the Olive Beige Denim were my favorites – though I loved all the fabric, I’m really thinking about ordering some more of those fabrics to use for myself. What do you think – olive beige jeans in my future?
So in closing I’d of course like to say, “Thank you, Mood” and really wholeheartedly recommend them for garment sewing fabrics. There is such a huge selection of high quality stuff here – and it’s not all crazy designer expensive – I ordered a lot of very affordable stuff. Plus remember that their yardage is usually 60″ wide, so you don’t need as much of it. Oh, last favorite thing about their online store (since we can’t all live in LA or NYC) – you can order to the 1/2 yard. I know a lot of online stores make you order full yards, and sometimes you end up with more fabric that you wanted to order, so I appreciate this detail.
Don’t forget that you can purchase Winter Wonderland at a 40% discount over the patterns’ individual prices now through November 18 ONLY – meaning if you’re on the fence, you’ve only got a week to get off it before this collection is gone. And if you need ideas about what to do with the patterns, check out our tour gallery here, or go to See Kate Sew, The Train to Crazy and Shwin & Shwin to see the latest posts.
Meg at Mood
Thanks for this great post explaining our Mood boards! So glad you like them. And these patterns are ADORABLE!
Jaime
I’ve never shopped at Mood but I’m definitely going to have to take a look now. This could be a problem – thank you! 🙂
Sally
I see that the fabric allowance for the Amaryllis Dress is shown on the pattern page, but how much is needed for each of the two fabrics? Is that information provided when I purchase the pattern? I’ve been adoring the pattern and checking out fabric options.
I’m looking at the 3T size… which means 2.5 (or 2) yards total between the two fabrics, correct? Plus the optional tulle?
Tiffany Smith
i find buying fabric online so daunting. Although I’m not a bad seamstress, I do worry that I won’t get enough. And of course, all of the fabric I love is super expensive!
Heather
Fantastic tutorial! Thank you! Also, the kids clothing are amazing!
Joy F
Thanks for this post. I wondered how ordering fabric from Mood worked. I especially like the mood board.
Julie
Thanks for explaining the Mood boards. I think a few other sites have them, but not all- so it’s good to know which ones do. Mood’s mood board also sounds very unique!
Simple Simon and Company
YAAYY for Mood!
marissa | Rae Gun Ramblings
SOOOO helpful! Thanks for taking the time to share this
Stacia
This is so helpful! I find a lot of online fabric shops super frustrating to use, but Mood seems like they make it super easy.