I’m a fabric hoarder. I freely admit it. I don’t sew that often, but I have an entire room full of fabrics that I love or at least liked enough that I couldn’t pass them up for the price.

fabric

Exactly.

Also?

This scenario may or may not have played out several times in our household:

fabric truth

That isn’t to say that I don’t use many of those fabrics. Because I DO!

I recover chairs with them (or get them recovered rather). And ottomans too! (that one really was me). I make curtains for the living room. And my kids’ rooms. I recover crib bumpers. And then do it again. I make fabric art. And wreaths with little fabric word banners (complete with misspellings). And table runners. And throw pillows. And… you get the idea.

So, yeah. I guess I do a lot with the fabric that I have. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t have a problem. And I think the saying goes: the first step is admitting you have a problem, at which point you’re free to buy even more fabric.

Or something like that.

Which is why I spent way too much time yesterday scoping out new fabrics for a room in our house that needs a bit of zing. It’s one I’ve never shown you before, and I plan to give you a peak tomorrow (we’ll see how that goes).

And after wading through a whole bunch of this:

Fullscreen capture 1152014 93101 AM

…I thought I might put all my intense fabric research to good use and share the gems I uncovered. That way, you won’t have to slog through 25 pages of striped toile in every possible shade of blah like I did. Ahem.

And so, I give you…

vibrant fabric collage

I’ve divided them into two loose categories:

1) Funky

2) Traditional

But remember that the key word here is VIBRANT. These are colorful, bold prints, sure to make a big statement. If you read the title of this post and thought, “Well, gee, Abbie. Under $25/yard doesn’t sound like that good of a deal,” I totally agree. 75% of these fabrics are well under $25/yd (think more like $7), and most of the time, there are coupon codes available via email or just by googling them for the two online fabric sources I used (fabric.com and onlinefabricstore.net).

But the thing is, paying $20 for a yard of really nice home decor fabric can easily get you up to 4 throw pillow fronts, depending on the size of the pillow (you can save money and make them reversible by using a neutral fabric for the back of the pillow). And most store-bought pillows, even at discount places like Ross and Marshall’s, run at least $15 a pop.

So, even a more expensive fabric, if you really love it, is worth it for the mileage (yardage?) in can give you in terms of home decor impact.

First up, let’s start with my favorite category.

funky collage

From left to right:

1/2/3    4/5/6   7/8/9   10/11/12   13/14/15

Hands down, my three favorites are the Waverly Santa Maria (middle row, far right), the Waverly Fun Floret in Citrus Orange (very middle), and the Swavelle/Mill Creek Indoor/Outdoor Starlet Teal (bottom right), and I will be finding ways to incorporate all of them into my home.

But I’m also pretty fond of the ones in this  category.

traditional collage

They’re still great statement-makers, but the color palette is a bit more subdued, and the patterns are a bit less modern.

From left to right:

1/2/3   4/5/6   7/8/9   10/11/12

So, what about you guys? Any fellow fabric hoarders out there? It’s rather disturbing just how much I enjoyed researching all of these patterns. Fabrics make me happy.

Any fabric projects you’re working on? Do you usually go bold or neutral (or somewhere in between)? As much as I love color and am not afraid to go bright, I usually buy  the ones that are slightly less saturated and loud. And when I do go bold, I usually do it in small doses like throw pillows or a framed piece of fabric.

15 Comments

  1. I may need a twelve step program. I’m going to work on my fabric hoarding problem as soon as I do something about my book problem…. it appears to be genetic as my grown children also have book problems. Love your fabric selections. So many pretty ones, so little time to get those projects done.

    1. Hey Carmen! I haven’t done a thing with it yet. I only have a little over a yard, and I want whatever I choose to use it on to be perfect because it’s so special (and expensive!). I’ll definitely be posting about it when I do finally bite the bullet.

  2. Have you purchased from fabric.com? I love so many of the fabrics I find there, but my grandma’s voice is in the back of my head reminding me I can’t feel the fabric, so don’t buy it!

    1. Yes, I’ve ordered from them a bunch. They’re the only place that lets you return already cut yardage (for free!), so really there’s no risk at all. And they have great customer service. And the best prices. So, I highly recommend them!

  3. Love these! I can relate to spending hours sorting through blah fabrics to find what I like. I think you should have a pinterest board for fabric, including these! We have similar taste and I’d love to benefit from your research. 🙂 I have a board with fun colorful fabrics if you want to check it out: https://www.pinterest.com/elyssamcdowell/fabric/

    Also, I just discovered if you you type “fabric.com” into the search engine on pinterest it pulls up all the fabrics pinned from fabric.com and most of them fit in the ‘vibrant’ category.

  4. Yup, I’m a fabric hoarder, too. To the point where I have so many UFO’s (unfinished objects) that I’m seriously considering letting my quilt group friends go “shopping” in my sewing room.
    Not only do the UFOs take up most of a closet, I have yards and yards of fabrics that I bought at discount when I was working in a quilt store. And therefore I recognize several fabric designers (if not the design itself) of what you have posted. It does not help my hoarding that my sister told me, when she finally got me started in quilting, that I should not throw out scraps left over from whichever quilt I’m cutting. You never know when you want exactly that small piece….. sigh

  5. I want to be bold….but I get scared and so does my color phobia husband. lol I want to be crafty and learn to sew (so much I asked for a sewing machine and got one, but can’t figure it out lol) but I just keep a “if i was crafty” board on my pintrest lol

  6. I promised myself I wouldn’t buy any more fabric until I used most of what I have. (It’s not going very well.) 🙂

I love hearing from you guys!