When you first get started with sewing, it’s easy to make a lot of mistakes. Unfortunately, that does mean wasting a lot of fabric as you get to grips with how the patterns and your sewing machine works.
For that reason, spending a lot of money on fabric often just isn’t practical. It’s usually better to try and hunt down cheaper options online so you aren’t left too out of pocket.
Looking to buy cheap fabrics?
While we’d recommend Fabric Wholesale Direct and Fashion Fabric Clubs as two of the best sites to buy cheap fabric by the yard, it’s worth noting — the best deals come in sales! Browse our list of sites below and sign up to their mailing lists. When a promo drops, you’ll hear about it first. This is the best way to make BIG savings via coupon codes and limited time offers.
It’s always a good idea to have a well-stocked arsenal of high quality online stores under your belt that you can use to get cheaper fabrics.
Fabric can cost a lot of money, which is why we’ve been combing the web looking for the best discounts on your behalf!
8 Best Places To Buy Cheap Fabric By The Yard
We’ll start with a couple of the online retailers that you may already be familiar with…
1. Fabric Wholesale Direct
https://www.fabricwholesaledirect.com/
The first option on our list is Fabric Wholesale Direct.
This company sells a lot of pretty affordable fabrics, and you can get an even better deal if you buy per yard in bulk.
It’s a good idea to try and buy their scrap fabric boxes. With these, you can get massive amounts of fabric for a really cheap price – up to 20 pounds worth of fabric in some cases!
You will be given a random pattern, so it can help you to think outside the box when making new garments since you won’t just be sticking to things that are tried and true. You can make wonderful clothing that you may have never thought to make if you were selecting a piece of fabric yourself.
This company is great at catering to beginners too, since each fabric will come with a video tutorial that will show you how the fabric operates and what it will look like when made into a garment. It’s an especially good idea if you are looking for knit fabrics.
By signing up to their mailing list on the website, it’s even possible to get a discount on their products.
When you have completed your order, you will often be sent emails with promo codes and vouchers that you can use for your next purchase. If you really like their stuff then it’s possible to sign up for their reward system that will give you discounts based on the amount that you spend.
The fabric is pretty high quality, though it’s certainly not perfect – you may find one piece of fabric every now and again that’s a little snagged.
It’s not going to be the kind of fabric that you’d find on a luxury brand, but it’s certainly more than good enough for the majority of projects.
It is a little disappointing that the fabrics tend to only be solid colors though. There are a few prints but there isn’t a lot of choice, though there’s a decent amount of African prints that you can use.
2. Fashion Fabrics Club
https://www.fashionfabricsclub.com
If you’re looking for cheap fabrics by the yard, then look no further than Fashion Fabrics Club. It’s ideal for all sorts of print fabrics and you are going to get a lot of variety too.
Of course, this level of variety can be a little bit of an issue if you aren’t already going in with a specific fabric or pattern in mind. You may spend a very long time looking for the right fabric for the job.
The company makes some excellent print swimwear fabrics and print rayon challis fabric. You’ll also find some wonderful jersey knits on this site.
If you spend over a certain amount you won’t have to pay for the shipping either, and sometimes there are also coupons that you can redeem to save more money. You’re getting affordability, but for a high quality. Keep an eye out for the regular discounts.
3. Online Fabric Store
https://www.onlinefabricstore.com/
This was a great discovery on our part – we’re so glad that we found them! With the Online Fabric Store, you can get super affordable fabric delivered to your door – and there are a ton of different fiber types too.
It’s a great site to visit if you want variety at a low price.
The company is based in New England and is run by a family with over 50 years of experience in the fabric industry. That shines through with one of the US’s largest supplies of first quality upholstery, drapery, apparel, and industrial fabric materials. Whether you’re looking to make your own shirts or curtains, you’ll find the right fabrics here – at a good price.
We’d recommend subscribing to their email list, which has regular deals just in case you’re itching to buy some new fabric.
There is one slight problem with this site in the sense that you won’t be able to get free shipping unless you spend a decent chunk of cash. Though, if you do want some samples then the shipping for that is free if you live in the United States.
4. Fabric.com
Now, this isn’t going to be the most affordable option on this list. With that in mind though, you will get free shipping after a fairly low order cost, and you’ll be able to get a bunch of fabrics on clearance.
You can find a lot of print knit fabrics on the Fabric.com store – which is one of the biggest fabric stores in the world.
In most cases you will need to order at least 2 yards of a fabric if you are ordering on clearance. When you have done that though, it’s possible to order as small as ½ yards of fabric instead.
When you place your order, you can expect it to arrive fairly quickly. In addition to that, the fabrics are all very high quality too.
If you are going to be ordering knit fabrics though, it’s worth doing some research in advance to see what they’re like, since it can be tricky to buy the right kind for your project if you don’t know what you’re working with.
5. Fabric Mart
https://www.fabricmartfabrics.com/
This is yet another site that’s a lot cheaper if you order their products on clearance – you may be spending quite a significant amount of money if you buy their items at regular price.
If you look on the website then you will find a bunch of fabrics on sale for less than a dollar, and they switch up the fabrics on offer pretty regularly. It’s a good idea to check out their sales and anything they have on clearance since you can get some bargains by doing this.
Sign up for their email list, too – you can sometimes get free shipping on your first order with them. This is a pretty good bargain since you’ll need to pay quite a bit of money for shipping after this.
If you want to know more about the fabrics that you’re buying, don’t worry – you can find information about them on the website.
If you don’t just want the fabrics, you can also check out the bargain bin. You can find lots of sewing accessories here which can be rather useful.
6. JoAnn
JoAnn isn’t always the best when buying cheap fabrics online – you need to be watching their website like a hawk for their weekly ads and any coupons they provide. You’ll then need to hop on those bargains ASAP!
You should especially keep an eye on the website around the holiday season, since the Doorbuster sale around the holidays is really good. If you’re impatient to get your fabrics then you can even arrange for collection in store.
The weekly ad will be changed every 2 weeks or so, making it a good idea to keep an eye out on their site to see what coupons and sales are there.
It’s worth remembering that certain fabrics are going to cost a lot more money than others, as would be the case in most stores. It’s especially important to note with JoAnn’s though, since their regular prices can be astronomically high.
7. Best Fabric Store
You can usually find a lot of upholstery, home decor, quilting and more in Best Fabric Store, but it’s not the best place for fabrics that are a little bit more stretchy. You won’t find a whole bunch of knits on this website.
With that in mind though, there certainly is no shortage of good deals at Best Fabric Store. All you need to do is go to their sale section to find oodles of deals, which can be incredibly cheap whether you buy by the yard, bolt or as remnants.
When you have placed your order you will also get insanely fast shipping, perfect if you’re itching to get sewing with your latest garment. You can get free shipping with a very low order cost too, which is always a win in our book!
8. Fabric Depot
This site is pretty good if you want a lot of high quality fabrics for clearance prices. Their regular prices tend to be somewhat high, though there’s usually enough in their clearance section to make up for that if you are on a budget.
Final Thoughts on Sourcing Affordable Fabrics
Finding cheap fabrics is something of a mission for us, so we’re pretty pleased with many of these sites.
Of course, there are certainly more options out there, but these provide you with a good starting point if you want to save some serious cash on new, high quality fabrics.
Good luck with your next project!