Sunday, October 05, 2008

Fabric chat at Wal-Mart


There ARE still some Wal-Marts with fabric departments, especially the "regular" not Super Wal-Marts. While grabbing three bolts of $1/yard knit fabric and trying to keep from becoming overly giddy, the clerk and I started talking... She said that Wal-Mart buys over 400,000 bolts of fabric for their $1 and $2/yard fabric sections and it is up to the fabric department manager's aggressiveness and luck how much or even if the store gets any, none or a lot of the bounty. She also confirmed that the knits which appear on the table are the overruns from RTW and Wal-Mart cannot order nor regularly carry these knits. Which are what I want. Jo-Ann's knits are not ready-to-wearish for the most part and buying online can be iffy -- hard to judge the thickness -- and expensive. With a couple yards of $1 or $2 yard fabric, no tears are shed if the pattern doesn't work and and if it does jumps of joy occur instead when you've made a cute top for less than $5. I did tell her that the Wal-Mart I used to find my treasures at is now a dry hole and she said again, it really depends upon the manager and she probably transferred or left. The take -- keep checking the stores every once in awhile. I hadn't found anything in years at the store where I found these (reversible microstripe in gray and brown, puckered embroidered beige knits).