Retailer Spotlight: Fabric Depot

fabricdepot

Fabric Depot
700 SE 122nd Ave
Portland, OR 97233

www.fabricdepot.com

Hello to all of my fellow sewista’s and fabric lovers. My next visit to a fabric store in Portand takes us to the mother of all fabric stores!! Thanks to Leenie Risser for doing her research on past newsletters, she found that we had never presented an article on Fabric Depot. So, that is my choice for this review. Fabric Depot is like a little city for sewing, it is an acre and a half of fabric, fabric, and fabric! I had the pleasure to meet Elaine Love, Operations Director and granddaughter of the original owner. The current president (her mom) is Trudy Parry Shurts. Elaine gave me a great tour of the store. We are really lucky to have this store in our own backyard.

Fabric Depot was started in 1992; it is an independent family owned business. Before 1992 the building had gone through several reincarnations of fabric businesses. They now have 150 employees. This store is 40,000 sq ft of sales floor and another 40,000 sq ft in stockroom, offices and e-business. The store is always very clean, has good lighting, unbelievable selection of items, great customer service and fabulous parking.

They stock approximately 20,000 fabrics, all well-know brand names in fashion, quilting, home decor and bridal, plus lots of notions, crafts, supplies, books, patterns, yarn, gifts and specialty items. They offer services for special orders, an online store, group events and lots of classes. For great deals, there is an outdoor sale during the summer and indoor warehouse clearance sale room during the winter.

Montavilla Sewing Centers store and Palmer/Pletsch publishing and training also share space in this little city of sewing heaven. It really is a one-stop shopping experience. The special order department will research and help you with any items. Elaine said they are very interested in groups using the facilities. We certainly enjoyed our sewing with knits event with Patti Palmer and Fabric Depot gave the attendees a nice coupon to go shopping with.

The depot is currently making changes. They are doubling the yarn selection, they are bringing in new fixtures and racks, the fashion fabric selection has been improved and enlarged through the hard work of buyer Georgia Graneto (Yay, Georgia from all of the garment sewing patrons). They are also bringing in more independent patterns from local designers. They currently have great selections of faux fur, minky and fleece. Elaine said that food prints are extremely popular right now, also, rustic linen looking wovens in geometric prints are hot in home decor. Be sure to look up and check out all of the great displays, they will give you some inspiration for your next project. The employees make a lot of the displays plus some vendor trunk show pieces are shown.

Ruth Ruby
Retail Liaison

 

Leave a Reply