-TAFFY WRAP-

sometimes we will go on mini deep dives over things we find online/irl, usually toys, objects, and ephemera. this is where we will put said findings, though others are more than welcome to share their own. expect these dives to be rambly and off the cuff, because that's the most fun thing for us.


[alt: a print of pink fabric adorned with little white elephants, dancing around and playing musical instruments.]

today i started making a new mewgenics plush (i really need to post the ones i've made...) and decided, today is the day i finally use my pink elephant fabric. the pink elephant fabric has haunted us for some time because we got it in a deadstock shipment from Sew by Sew (we will get into this in a moment) and it is so beautiful, and so perfect, that we got caught in the Crafter's Struggle of trying to find the absolute _perfect_ project to use it on.

the problem, of course, is that you will struggle to find the perfect project and never fucking use the awesome fabric. i forced myself to go hunting through the many fabric bins i've accumulated in the past year and a half since starting the sewing adventure, and pulled out things that could work for the reference images i assembled last night.

one of these, of course, being the pink elephant fabric. i still fucking hesitated because god, is this the right project? it's so beautiful. it's one of the best things i've ever gotten in one of these deadstock shipments. what if this is the wrong decision?

aaaand then i realized i was considering it for one of my absolute Favorite mewgenics cats so far and went ah fuck it why not. 


[alt: the same fabric in an actual photograph, cut into pieces for a cat shaped plush pattern.]


the fabric for Gizzy Girl, as the game so generously named her (in Mewgenics you cannot change the name of a cat from their pool of largely user-suggested names iirc so whatever you get Congrats that's the name. i like this mechanic a lot! anyway, gizzy!) has been drawn out and cut.

the nice thing about the mewgenics plushes is theyre a fantastic way for us to learn freehand pattern drafting, and gizzy's plush looks to be an ideal, optimized one...probably. our two past plushes, ms mac and mimsie, were a bit..............................not what we expected. still adorable! but neither of them were proportioned quite as planned. things to learn from. but while drafting and cutting, we noticed that we were extremely lucky and the fabric had an actual URL printed on it! we haven't seen this with any of our other secondhand fabric so far, but recognize it as a good way for people to see what manufacturer/designer fabric is from. and thus- the deep dive began. 



[alt: logo for henry glass fabrics]

the URL provided was for a wholesale manufacturer called Henry Glass Fabrics, which is one we haven't heard of yet. looks to be a manufacturer with a decent pile of designers, which i'd like to dig into later and see what's up there. they say that they're specifically a wholesaler for independent fabric stores, which is very neat!

i didn't really think about the fact that there are probably wholesale manufacturers that prefer to work with indies, but it makes sense to me...i've never been to a proper indie store on account of my inability to leave the house frequently and the scarcity of said stores where i've lived over the course of my near-30 years of being alive, but now i feel even more spurred to go figure that out. 

it does look like the fabric is mainly quilting cotton, with some minky available. i have Opinions on minky that could be gotten into another day, because right now i'd rather focus on my findings. quilting cotton, conversely, is my favorite fabric to buy and work with outside of sock material, and i am delighted to find a manufacturer i can hunt for. you can't exactly buy these things directly from the site, seeing as they are wholesalers, but the great news is- the fabric i got ALSO had the proper line listed!

this pink elephant fabric is part of a **set!** 

some terminology- quilting fabric is often sold in specifically sized precut bundles when you're buying a set. one particularly common sizing for these called Fat Quarters, which is a 1/4 yard of fabric. i don't know where the fat part comes from. these sets are meant to work together in order to create a cohesively designed quilt, with patterns generally matching a theme and palette. i've had a great experience buying smaller fat quarter bundles, and the larger ones tempt me dangerously.

i knew that looking up whatever set this was for the elephant was going to be a problem. 



[alt: a set of fabric featuring beautiful spring patterns, all in a tantalizing ring shape.]


investigating the set had instant results, making my job as fabric detective very very easy. the design in question was from the Nana Mae 6 set, which appears to be a cute, vibrant collection featuring flowers and playful animals. i want it desperately. it is so good. it is a reproduction of 1930's fabric. it is also sold out and on the site i found the set, costs 96 USD when not on sale. individual yards cost anywhere from 8-12 USD. i will not be getting the Nana Mae 6 collection. 

however, that price raised the question- if you have 24 fat quarters in a bundle, and they cost 96 dollars, and i have what appears to be half a yard versus a quarter...

how much did i save, by getting this in a deadstock bundle for either 15 or 30 USD with a shitload of other fabric? (...i do not remember which bundle i got.)



[alt: the sew by sew logo]


the deadstock seller Sew by Sew is an amazing resource for fabric on the cheap. along with Swanson's Fabrics they are my retailer of choice by far, and both specialize in giving fabric that would have been thrown into a landfill a new home. while i don't see myself as someone saving the environment or anything, it feels good to not contribute to that- and frankly, old shit is just better. like, sorry to say it but the old fabric industry had a lot more good shit in the works. i just prefer to work with older stuff, and to get those goods, you have to go to the people willing to salvage it and sell it to crafters at a good price.

their mystery fabric bundles tempt me every time i get an email from them. genuinely diabolical- they get the leftovers from things like the fashion industry and sell it in a pack by the pound. i forget if we got the 1 lb or 3 lb bundle for our first order, but the pink elephant fabric was in whatever that was....and i mean, by god. look at it. it was the clear winner of the huge pile and we thus never fucking touched it out of aforementioned Fear. 



[alt: taffy wrap's TCP model sitting at a laptop, up to some calculations.]

so, let's do some math. i can't do numbers for shit so shoutout to google calculator. 

this is going to be an extremely rough range, mainly because due to being a wholesaler situation with different sizings of the fabric leading to different pricings, along with whether things are in a set....there's no real way to know how much whoever had this fabric originally paid for it. add in the fact that i either got this in a 15 USD or 30 USD bundle, we're just going to ignore that part of the equation and go "wow, what a good price for such a large bundle of fabric!" and leave it at that. 

there are 24 fabric designs in the Nana Mae 6 set. if you get the 96 USD set of all of them in fat quarter sizing, you're looking at 4 USD per quarter. a half yard would be 8 USD, by that price.

if you were to go by the individual yard, you're looking at 8 to 12 USD, by the guesstimates i made by a quick google search. ebay also says that a yard of it secondhand goes for 10 USD, so yeah, that's pretty good for a range. buying things NOT precut will get you a better price, like, literally every time. however, for those who want just a smaller amount...yeah, you want to go with the quarters. such is life.

halving that is anywhere from 4 to 6 USD, with the middle of that being 5 USD. a whole ass 200% from the fat quarter price! jesus. pretty expensive difference, especially when you consider a fat quarter being not all that much fabric in the long run. my plushes generally take up a yard of fabric or less, and even though these ones have taken eghhhh around a fat quarter or so each, they're pretty damn small. think around beanie baby range, for comparison.



[alt: taffy's TCP sitting nonchalantly, feeling pleased with himself.]


comparing anywhere from 5 to 10 USD to either a 15 or 30 USD bundle...wow, damn. that's a really good deal. even if i were to buy the individual yard on ebay, it still wouldn't compare to how good this deal is when you consider i distinctly remember the elephants being in a proper pile of fabric goodies.

the moral of the story? buy deadstock. if you want to take a lil gamble and see what interesting fabrics are out there, and are cool with not getting exact patterns or sizes for your projects...why not? you're helping keep things out of landfills and getting The Good Shit- including fabrics no longer produced. while this one does seem to be circulating just fine, i've gotten some really old stuff that will never see the light of day again in a mainstream shop.

and it still holds up great.


DISCLAIMER LITERALLY AFTER I FINISHED WRITING THIS i found out that Henry Glass Fabrics is a part of a larger brand amalgam named Jaftex. more to investigate...