Corduroy Fabric Stores

Buying Corduroy at Retail

Retail fabric stores sell corduroy the way home sewers and small makers actually buy it: by the yard, from stock, in colours and wale counts chosen for garments rather than for production runs. The four stores listed below are the retailers carried in the original Fabric Search guide, and between them they cover the main buying styles — the deep designer-fabric shop, the large online fabric catalogue, the big-inventory online store that also stocks upholstery and drapery cloth, and the long-established fabric store with a dedicated corduroy category of prints and solids.

Before ordering, settle the questions retail product pages answer unevenly. Wale count decides whether you are buying fine needlecord for a shirt or wide wale for a jacket, and it is not always in the product title, so check the description or ask. Fiber content matters for shrinkage and pressing: pure cotton corduroy behaves differently from a cotton-spandex stretch corduroy. Width matters for pattern layout, especially for trousers, where a narrow width can push yardage up. And because corduroy has a pile direction, order enough in one piece — a second order may come from a different dye lot and will certainly need its nap matched.

Sewing Notes for Store-Bought Corduroy

Corduroy bought by the yard rewards a little preparation. Pre-wash cotton corduroy if the finished garment will be washed, because cotton pile fabrics can shrink, and let it dry flat or on a gentle cycle rather than crushing the pile. Lay out patterns with every piece running the same pile direction, using a with-nap layout even if it costs extra yardage — that extra is the most common reason retail corduroy orders come up short. Cut with sharp shears or a rotary blade, because pile edges shed, and finish seams promptly so the cut pile does not work loose in handling.

In the sewing itself, a walking foot helps the ribbed surface feed evenly, stitch length can be slightly longer than for a flat cotton, and pressing should be done from the wrong side over a towel or needle board so the pile is not flattened. Topstitching shows beautifully on corduroy and suits its casual character, but test needle and thread on a pile scrap first. None of this is difficult; corduroy is a forgiving, stable woven that sews more like a medium cotton twill than like velvet, which is why it remains a favourite first textured fabric for garment sewers.

Finding More Fabric Stores

You can search for more corduroy fabric stores on search engines, as the original guide suggested, and when researching fabric retailers you may also want to visit the fabric store section on Apparel Search, which covers retail fabric sellers beyond this one fabric. Local independent fabric shops are worth the trip when they stock corduroy in season: seeing wale scale and pile depth in person settles questions that photographs flatten, and shop staff who sew can advise on yardage for a nap layout honestly, because they have made the same mistake themselves.

If you know of any additional resources that should be added to this section, please let us know. It would be our pleasure to add beneficial listings to help make this section more informative, and suggestions for improving this area of the directory are greatly appreciated. Useful suggestions name the store, give its website, and say what its corduroy range actually consists of — which wales, which fibers, garment weight or upholstery weight — so readers can tell before clicking whether the store suits the project they have in mind.

Corduroy Fabric Stores

Retailers listed in the original Fabric Search corduroy stores guide. Check current stock, wale count, width and fiber content on each store's own corduroy page before ordering.