Do be careful though and try to see the fabrics in person first if there is one particular aspect of the fabric line that appeals to you.

I had been eagerly awaiting a new horse-themed fabric line from Giordano Studios after finding it on the Spectrix website, and pre-ordered it as soon as I was able to do so. Well, the fabric arrived just over a week ago and it turned out that the company had changed the design on a couple of the fabrics, but had not changed any of the pictures that were available on the Internet or elsewhere. For my purposes, the design change was significant because it changed the fabric from an English riding theme, which is what I wanted, to a Western one, which I have no use for. I have still had no response from anyone at Giordano Studios.

This is the first time I have had this particular problem so far as I am aware, but I probably wouldn't even notice with other types of pattern. Does anyone know how common this is?

Akrogirl,

I think what you ran into happens quite rarely. We've been dealing with some three dozen makers for years, and I can only recall four times when the fabrics were very different from what was pictured: different enough that I sent the bolts back. If you buy it from a manufacturer, and what they send is significantly different than as advertised, you'd be perfectly justified in returning it!

Two thoughts for you: some stores on the web allow you to pre-order fabrics from up-and-coming lines (we do this)... so you will be ahead of the curve as far as getting the goods.

If you want to see *all* the future lines, probably the most efficient way to do this would be to check a distributor's site. Since the distributors sell fabrics from many different makers, it's a kind of one-stop-shopping to see what is in the works. Keep in mind that the distributors only sell to shops, so you can't buy from them, but you can peek! I do... several times a week!

:)

My favorite place to check is http://www.checkerdist.com. Click on the purple "fabric" tab, and then you can scroll down and see what was new, within several time frames. The ETAs shown are not always accurate, though.

Another good place to check is http://www.eeschenck.com

You *could* check the websites of all the various manufacturers, but some of them don't show the up-and-coming groups until they hit the stores, and at that point, some of the fabrics could already be sold out if they didn't print very much.

If you're watching for something in particular, you can always PM me. I'm an absolute JUNKIE when it comes to finding out what the new lines are going to be!

Thank you so much for your input :-) I was hoping that it was a rare occurrence but, as I said, I doubt if I would even notice in most cases unless the change was really drastic.

ETA - thank you for the additional info in your second post :-)

I have found that eQuilter.com to have the greatest number of new fabrics online. If you live in or near Manhattan, go to The City Quilter and there, you will find the newest fabric also.
GBrowne

i get the newletters from all the manufacturers that i like (moda, marcus, etc).

then when i see something i like i use the quilt shop search engine to find the best price.

it pays to visit the manufacturers sites for new fabric lines;
they offer free patterns when new lines come out using the new line.
benartex, michael miller, patrick loose, moda, just to name a few. also, if you find a line you love they also have links to the shops that carry their fabrics.