Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Upholstery Fabric Shopping

Sharon dropped by a couple more upholstery fabric stores this week. At Whole 9 Yards, she found Craftsman reproduction fabrics! OMG, too bad she didn't find this fabric before we ordered the living room furniture last fall!

It's beautiful fabric but it costs $84/yard!! (You can buy it here online.) Despite the cost, it would have been pretty tempting last fall because it is SO wonderful!

If only she had found them before she had ordered her new furniture... She is resisting the impulse to buy it to replace the current fabric; it would be impractical to recover all these cushions at this point. At least the color palettes blend well.


Celtic Knot - Lilac
Sterling Thistle

Celtic Knot Jr. - Brick
Sharon also went to Mill End Fabrics. They had some lovely fabrics, but she couldn't even be tempted. Mill End doesn't label most of their upholstery fabrics with fiber content. Maybe it's silly, but Sharon won't buy any fabrics with rayon in them.  We want to be able to wash this fabric and rayon sometimes shrinks and distorts in the laundry, so we'll stick with fabrics that have a known content.

Anyway, back to the current project. Sharon also picked up some cotton velvet samples while she was out. A solid color would be more practical to match the existing fabrics. To recover the new morris chair, we're probably going with the green velvet swatch on the far left; a color called Loden.

2 comments:

  1. Do you guys know how to do a burn test to determine fabric content? Get a swatch, pull a few threads loose so that they're still attached to the swatch on one end, and pass the threads through a lighter. Natural fabrics burn cleanly and smell like...well, like natural burning stuff. Threads with any synthetic content generally melt and/or smell like burnt plastic (which they are).

    Here's a more specific chart, and you can google lots more info, of course: http://lindrix.com/fabcontent.html

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  2. I think you're right, a solid color looks like it is most practical. They are all beautiful fabrics though. Good luck with the project!

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