Want to guarantee you’ll be 100 percent satisfied with your online fabric purchase? Always order a swatch first. We know, we know, sometimes you’re in the moment and you just can’t wait for a swatch. But here are four reasons why we think it pays to add this little step first:
1) Seeing Colors: Wouldn’t things be so simple if the colors displayed exactly the same way from desktop to mobile, and then to real life? We can’t see this happening anytime soon as there are just too many variations in monitor and mobile settings. Order a swatch when buying the exact color is paramount.
2) Describing Colors: Here at Mood we get into little mini discussions all the time about colors of fabric when we write product copy: “Would you say this fabric is a reddish brown or more of a brownish red?” Yeah, we actually talk about nuances like that. We hold each fabric to the window to observe the color in natural light, and we use the Pantone Fashion and Home Color Guide to help pinpoint an appropriate color name.
But while we may call that yellow “banana cream,” you may say no way Mood, it’s daffodil. Everyone interprets color in his or her own unique way. Solution? Order a swatch and see for yourself.
3) Feeling texture: We do our best to tell you about a fabric’s texture through photos and descriptive copy, but sometimes you just have to feel it for yourself. What’s soft to us might be scratchy to you, and vice versa.
4) Determining weight: Accurately describing a fabric’s weight is not as easy as you’d think. We do our best to tell you if we think a fabric is lightweight, medium-weight or heavyweight, but many fabrics straddle the line between lightweight and medium-weight, or medium-weight and heavyweight. A particular wool coating is lightweight, we say, but it may be medium-weight in your book.
Worried a fabric may sell out before your swatch arrives? You can always call our customer service department to ask if that’s a danger with the fabric you want. Do you swatch first? Or do you just cross your fingers, order and hope for the best? Tell us here!
5 comments
I have gotten better at judging a fabric based on detailed web site descriptions and the quality of the merchant. Some are better and more descriptive than others and after experience in purchasing, I’ve been able to make some pretty accurate judgments. I have swatched more with Mood fabrics because the items I buy here are “investment” type fabrics — either expensive or top-quality fibers or both. And I don’t want to make a mistake with those. In general, it is always better to swatch but if time does not allow that, a good relationship with a reliable merchant can help relieve jitters. And I’ve discovered that on those occasions that the fabric I’ve bought does not meet expectations, I can often use in some way.
I actually do both. There have been times when I need to know if the color fabric will match and so I will get a swatch ,other times when I don’t need it to match I just go with my gut. I have never been disappointed with my purchase from Mood.
Lola, that’s so great to hear! Thanks.
I love the swatch service Mood provides and get them all the time. I don’t like to be super excited about a fabric I think will be perfect for a project, only to wait for it to arrive in the mail and realize it’s not the right thing. There have been a couple times the fabric sold out before I could nab it but Mood has so many beautiful fabrics that I’m not sad for long.
My wife is super into making pillows and blankets and there has been more than one occasion where she has brought home a swatch from a swatch memo at the store and it hasn’t been what she wanted. I’m really glad my wife is really smart like that because then it saves time and money. I like this article and how it describes how even FEELING the texture is a good idea to get a swatch.