Have You Seen This Fabric?

December 4, 2017 9:43 AM

Since 1999, Missing Fabrics has offered a free*, crowd-sourced service for locating hard-to-find fabrics for quilters, upholsterers, and other crafters who need just a little more fabric in order to complete a project. It is also a glorious example of early web design and community.

* If you can't provide your own picture then there is a charge of $1 to scan a swatch.

posted by jedicus (13 comments total)

I bet my mom has all of these fabrics. I am not going to try to get them from her.
posted by elizilla at 9:57 AM on December 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

Omg that's so rad
posted by Annika Cicada at 10:12 AM on December 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Wow! Looks like at least 1300 success stories.

That reminds me, I bought a beautiful dark yellow fabric that was discontinued and I would love to have more...
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:16 AM on December 4, 2017

This is amazing. Like a time capsule but still active. I love it so much.
posted by hydrobatidae at 10:22 AM on December 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Wow. Everything used to look like this! I miss (I don't really miss) that! I remember making a bootleg tape trading website and thinking how slick it looked when I learned how to add pictures.
posted by prozak at 10:29 AM on December 4, 2017

What the HELL are you trying to make me waste even more time today??
posted by Melismata at 11:10 AM on December 4, 2017

Reminds me of that company that sells you the one item from your china pattern that you didn't buy at the time, but now want terribly.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:16 AM on December 4, 2017 [5 favorites]

This evokes for me the haunting melancholy of knitting patterns, especially colorwork, using long-discontinued yarns. There's a particular version of Kaffe Fassett's "Crosspatch" in wintry colors that I dream about doing someday, but the yarn in question is long gone.
posted by praemunire at 11:17 AM on December 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

I remember my dad using silver exchanges on the early internet to turn the silver he inherited from my grandmother from the three partial sets plus many random parts of other patterns* into three large full sets. It may even have been BBSes, it was very early on. You could trade your mixed pieces for the right patterns, though usually not for free. But they had much the same amateurish but useful feel.

*She had a bizarrely large number of these. Most of her silver was stolen at one point, then found before being melted down by Arlington police when they busted a theft ring. There was a huge 'identify your items' display down at the hq at one point, and our theory was that they gave her all the random bits left over. Her silver had been a huge amount of the haul -- each of the four other children got large sets of silver as well, my Dad ended up with the smaller sets and the random items. Grandma really liked silver!
posted by tavella at 12:21 PM on December 4, 2017

Reminds me of that company that sells you the one item from your china pattern that you didn't buy at the time, but now want terribly.

Replacements, Ltd?
posted by jedicus at 1:17 PM on December 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

This is amazing! Thanks for sharing.
posted by john_snow at 1:52 PM on December 4, 2017

Gonna send this to all my quilting friends. Wonderful info. I dare not look because I already have far more fabric than I can ever get through, especially because I'm not as into quilting as I used to be. ::: Restraining self from rummaging through my stash:::

Thanks!
posted by LeftMyHeartInSanFrancisco at 7:20 PM on December 4, 2017

This is great.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:11 PM on December 4, 2017