Do I detect that you sew, from that lazy remark??? :-) Barn Fabrics is having a sale through midnight 9/2. This is the email I got. LABOR DAY SALE $3.99 PER YARD To all my web customers: We are glad to offer you this special by email: Upholstery (U), Drapery (D only, not DM), Microsuede (MS) and Ranger Twill (RT) fabrics on our website, www.barnfabriccenter.com, will be offered at $3.99 per yard from now until midnight September 2, 2013 Please add "Labor Day Sale" to the Special Instructions/Comment Section at check out to receive the discount. Discounts will not be applied without this code. Please remember discounts are not shown in the shopping cart but are taken manually upon receipt of the order at our store. Please call with any questions or to order by phone 1-800-820-4330. Thank you for your business, Gary Now many of their fabrics are 'older', but on their last sale, just as an example, I got some of the Robert Allen at Home Bamboo Lattice in Amber that I am linking below, for $3.99 a yard. Joann Fabrics is selling it now for reg. 54.99, SALE 27.49. I also got some P Kaufmann 'Alta' in Tobacco micro suede there for $3.99, and it sells online for $26.75 at another online site. It's MS-1067 at the Barn, and they have it in three colors. What's I'm suggesting is that you go there and page through the fabric, as for $3.99 a yard, you don't want to be lazy! Here is a link that might be useful: Robert Allen Bamboo Lattice in Amber

Thanks jm, I'm actually kind of glad they are sooooo overpriced. If they were $300 I might have (ridiculously) talked myself into them. But now I will make them for less than $100 and probably be happier with them anyways. I will look at the online feather pillow forms. I saw a really nice feather pillow for a bed that looks like it would be just the right size to split in 2 and make 2 kidney pillows ($20), and I have several fabrics bookmarked at fabricguru's. Even if I have to order a couple of samples I'm still going to be way ahead in terms of price. Cattnap and johnatemp, thanks for the suggestion to get an upholsterer to do the job. I may resort to that even though I know I can do them myself. I'm doing the slipcover for the sofa myself and I'm thinking when I'm done that, i'm going to be so sick of sewing... And $40,000 for a loveseat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!! What are these people thinking? Mind you, I have a girlfriend who is also looking for chairs for her living room and she thinks anything over $400 for a chair is widely extravagent. If she knew I was spending over $1000 on a chair, she would probably have the same reaction as you did to your friend :-)

The problem is that we haven't stopped shoveling money into this house since we moved in a year and a half ago... Good news, though -- my husband was very reluctant to keep it and pushed back a bit this morning, so I asked if they could lower the price. They did, by $200! I love that place. My MIL does, too, and bought a few small rugs last time she was here. As for my room, I can continue doing stuff that is free, like this sham with fabric I already had: I might wash/dry a bit of the fabric to see if it would work as a duvet cover. I have 9 yards of it! It was going to be my LR shade fabric, but then I changed my mind because it looked purple in there.

But Anglo, aren't you a designer? A lot of workrooms will not work with the general public. Upholsterers, maybe. I don't mean picking fabric from lines they carry. They wanted to be able to order it themselves, though. But you're right. The upholstered in the small town I grew up in expected his customers to provide fabric through a decorator, usually. But upholsterers in my city also carry fabrics, often, and the one I worked with could get anything I wanted so it wasn't limited to "his" fabric, not at all. When my window treatment guy went out of business for draperies when the workroom burnt down, I had a heck of a time finding a workroom who would even make something for a someone without a business licence. To the trade period. Plus I was COM at that point because my fabric was not at the workroom when it burnt. I finally was able to get a fabricator with two references from designers and she will work with me directly. The person who I was able to find who would work with the public was a seamstress, not a workroom. She could make drapes but not bedspreads. She did not have the quilting machinery. So I should have said "in my experience".