Oof. Well, I'm not surprised. Even our local Joann is gone now, and while it might not have been great, at least it was there.

(We do have a good--though small--Indian fabric shop, but their stuff is way way way too nice for everyday stuff.)

We still have JoAnns around here but they carry very little except quilting fabrics & a small amount of upholstery fabrics.

I like Mood Fabrics (NYC) for their selection and the ability to order swatches….

www.moodfabrics.com/

You could try Vogue Fabrics. I spent many hours there choosing fabrics for clothes with my grandmother then many years later picking upholstery/drapery fabric for my own homes. It's such a tactile experience to be in a fabric store - not sure I could do it online even with swatches!

https://www.voguefabricsstore.com/ 

I too have more or less given up on making clothing. The selection is terrible and the pricing makes it an expensive experiment. Grrrr... I did find some yard dyed cotton plaid fabric on Etsy, so you may try searching there.

This is not an economical option, but the fabrics are gorgeous and make for stunning clothing. Britex.

https://www.britexfabrics.com

Pendleton sells fabric - and they specialize in woolens, of course. It's not a large selection, tho.

https://www.pendleton-usa.com/sale/blankets-home-sale/fabric/

I'm fortunate to have 2 fabric stores nearby, Joann and a locally owned store that's been here since the early 60s, so I've never had to shop for fabric online, in fact I've gotten a good amount of my fabrics second hand from thrift shops.

Joann.com sells fabrics online too.

I've bought from Sell Fabric and found their prices to be very good.

Since I am in Los Angeles, there are sufficient local fabric stores for me to go to, especially in the garment district, but I really do not like going downtown. However, there is a new Metro line that has a stop just a few blocks from my house, and so I should try using that to go downtown to shop.

I never buy or use plaid, and so I cannot you help for that. If you are interested in prints, then I can give you some sources, however.

It would help if you would say whether you want linen, cotton, or wool.

Well, what do I want exactly?

Don't laugh. Years ago, my kid had these plaid cargo pants that she adored. She wore them long past the time they were the appropriate length and when I decided they had to be hemmed into shorts, the fabric had given up the ghost in certain places where you don't want holes. We've looked for replacements for years. So now, what the heck, I'm gonna try to make a pair.

The originals were a cotton flannel in an obnoxious bright green/yellow/blue/white. Picture a plaid Easter egg. :P

Hmm...

Joann.com does have a large selection of obnoxious brightly colored plaids - mostly cotton...

https://www.joann.com/search?q=plaid%20fabric&prefn1=refinementColors&prefv1=Multi&prefn2=productGroup&prefv2=Product&srule=search-default&sorder=descending

Robert Kaufman makes lovely cotton flannels. Hawthorne Supply

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am keeping a list of all these sources--even if I give up on this project, I will be needing fabric for other things!

I do want to be careful with the fabric. I'm familiar with a lot of Joann's flannel plaids (I happen to have a pile of it) and I like them fine but the trick here is to not look pajamaey. The ones I have are printed and look like PJ material. (Probably because they are! Teehee!)

Sometimes I figure I could save time by just buying the kid pajama pants. Plaid flannel pants are gonna look like PJs anyway, aren't they?

I will second on Vogue fabrics. Lovely fabrics every time I have been there. I haven't ordered online from them, so don't know how nice that is.

Pajama pants are definitely popular now. Since 2020, comfortable clothing has become quite fashionable.

Carpenter pants have made a comeback as well as the super wide legged pants of the 90s.

I tried ordering some carpenter jeans that looked really cute, but they were so oversized they just didn't fit - and I tried more than one size too ☹️

I would want to use wool flannel (or a wool blend) for making pants, as cotton flannel will wear out quickly, but wool flannel is somewhat expensive. It would also have to be dry cleaned.

Thanks all! I'm getting ideas for myself. :)

Upon interrogation, my kid has said that it doesn't have to be flannel. It just has to be soft. 🙄

This kid isn't ready for wool I'm afraid.

Perhaps you can make them out of plaid flannel sheets. If a whole set is just too much fabric and expense, you can search for separates and buy a flat twin sheet or maybe a crib sheet might be big enough.

https://merchantandmills.com/us/

https://stonemountainfabric.com

https://blog.closetcorepatterns.com/the-ultimate-list-of-online-fabric-stores/

Excellent roundup…

Wonderful--thank you!

eta: Stonemountain is almost local. I can actually go there!

I used to use fabric.com, but it appears now that that is sold exclusively through Amazon. In the past I have bought Sunbrella fabrics and terrycloth fabrics from fabric.com, but the links I have now go to Amazon.

For printed fabric, I use Spoonflower, and I have also bought from OnlineFabricStore.com.

My favorite local fabric store, F&S Fabrics, used to sell online during the pandemic, but it appears that they no longer do that. However, I do prefer to shop in person, and that store is conveniently located for me.

I, too, have mostly given up sewing much of anything . It is almost impossible to find anything worth sewing with anymore.

We still have a Joanns not too far, but fabric shopping there is a joke. There is nothing there but cheap piecing cottons, flannel that is almost like lint, and synthetic knits and tons of that god awful fleece.

I had to actually have a laugh at the recent ad for Joanns that advertised thousands of yards of clearance fabrics at bargain prices! Ok, so I was looking for some bottom weight to sew some pants and tootled off to Joanns where I have found some decent denims and twill in the past. Well, those denims and twill are now not only full of synthetic fibers but they have also gone up to at least $20/yard!

So, off to the other side of the store to see the "wide variety of clearance bargains". %^%#&^%!!!! WTF???? What garbage and certainly not even a shelve full.

They have no competition and there is no incentive for them to provide anything of quality because young sewers have not much idea of what it should be, anyway.

Most often, the store is badly kept and badly staffed and badly supplied.

I reluctantly bought a length of fabric that is far inferior to the quality of the older ones from Joanns fabrics, just a few years ago.

I will only sew a few pants and I want a couple of nice button shirts. Other than that, I am just letting it pass. So many places in America where you cant even buy a spool of thread!

Ironically, I found a length of lightweight cotton twill at WalMart for about $5/yard! I bought that and it made a pretty decent trial of the pattern. But it was the only bolt and only one color.

I hate buying fabric online. Sewing and creating is such a tactile experience. And, they are still so very expensive! I dont understand people who make all of these trial garments. With fabric so expensive, how to justify the expense? And I dont want "investment" fabrics . I want just good everyday wearable fabrics, not fancy dress or slinky.

fabricstore. com has become popular for linen. Again, it is expensive.

The market for eastern European linen has been threatened with politics, war and unprecedented climate weirdness. It looks like they are trying to add some cotton into the offerings. Still, very expensive.

It used to be fun to fabric shop and fun to sew . Not so much anymore.

i will never again buy a pattern from the big four. I did buy a PDF pattern recently from an online source. Even the offerings of the big four are left in the dust by the smaller independent pattern designers that you can find online.

Sewing and creating is such a tactile experience.

@claudia valentine this is the truth and sadly something that younger generations will likely never experience. My grandmother sewed most of her own clothes and I loved playing with the scraps of boucle, silks, quality twill, wools and crepes that would occasionally become doll clothes for me. I can still picture many of the suits and dresses that she made and wore with such style. Now everything feels like plastic.

Hope you got what you needed Fori. I'm another who misses the fabric stores I grew up with. Loved the one near my grandmother. It was an experience and filled me with someday dreams of making lovely and fancy things. Of course, they are gone now. My clothing making experiences have been more like nightmares, but I survived the most recent one -- an outfit for an Indian/hindu wedding ceremony. I wanted something western rather than feeling like I was playing dress up in something I wasn't used to wearing or confident how it would stay on, but I wanted cool, natural fibers in a certain color palette. Yeah, right.

I buy linen from Fabrics Store. They have added some cottons recently, but I have not ordered any at this point.

I ordered some nice challis I like from Style Maker Fabrics but by the time they arrived they didn't fit the evolving wedding outfit needs and ideas so they are available for future outfits. The fabrics are nice, they offer matching thread and the service was good. I would use them again.

Mood Fabrics is another I check out form time to time. I am on mailing lists for a number of others, but they are all geared towards bag making (lots of vinyl and hardware) and quilting/crafting. I do miss being able to touch, scrunch and pet the fabric.

I do have some nice things to work with and plans to make a dress for the October western wedding ceremony (morning outdoors) and maybe something for the reception (indoors/cocktail attire). Unfortunately, the fabrics I didn't use for this last ceremony don't really work with the colors for the October one. I've already started looking again.