Twill Fabric Stores & Retailers

Buying Twill at Retail

A fabric store sells twill the way most makers actually need it: in modest lengths, cut from the bolt, in a range of fibers and colors that can be handled and compared in person or examined through swatches online. Twill suits retail especially well because its qualities are tactile — the diagonal hand, the drape, the difference between a crisp gabardine and a soft brushed cotton twill only becomes obvious when you can flex the cloth. Stores stock twill for its classic uses: slacks, dresses, and jackets, as the listings below note, plus skirts, uniforms, and home decorating projects such as cushion covers and curtains that benefit from twill's durability and subdued texture.

Shopping retail also means choice without commitment to mill quantities. A home sewer can buy two yards of cotton twill for trousers; a costumer can match a wool twill to a period pattern; a small label can sample several constructions before placing a wholesale order elsewhere. Good fabric stores support those decisions with knowledgeable cutting-counter staff, swatch services, and honest fiber-content labeling. The stores in this guide range from long-established brick-and-mortar institutions to online catalogs, reflecting how fabric retail now works: the bolt may be across town or across the country, but the buying logic is the same.

The Listed Stores

Gypsy Caravan's online fabric store presents twill by end use and fiber, offering cotton twill, wool twill, polyester and cotton twill, and poly/cotton twill, along with home decorating twill — a useful spread because it lets a shopper compare a natural-fiber twill against easy-care blends for the same project. Nick of Time Textiles, based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, sells twill woven fabrics at discounted and wholesale-style prices, including hard-to-find fabrics and accessories through its online store, serving both retail customers and buyers who need more than a few yards. Its twill collection page gathers the range in one place, which makes comparison shopping straightforward.

Robert Kaufman Fabrics is a name quilters and apparel sewers know well: its range covers cotton prints, novelty fabrics, yarn-dyes, and solids across wovens including poplin, twill, denim, corduroy, linen, and canvas, in fibers from cotton and linen to polyester and cotton/spandex blends. Through retailers that carry the line, its twills reach home sewers in dependable quality. Vogue Fabrics Store brings the longest history in this list: founded in 1945 by Sy Sussman and Sol Farber as a small shop for dressmakers, it grew into one of America's largest and best-loved fabric stores, with a flagship covering half a city block, additional Chicagoland locations, swatch catalogs, a wholesale division, and an online store — the full evolution of fabric retail in one business.

Choosing Twill in the Store

Start with the project, because twill's range is wide. For trousers and structured skirts, look for mid-weight cotton or poly/cotton twill with a firm hand; for jackets, consider wool twill or a heavier cotton; for dresses, lighter twills and brushed finishes drape more kindly. Unroll a length and let it fall — twill should fold in soft lines without stiffness unless the fabric is meant for workwear. Check the diagonal on both faces, since some twills are finished differently on the reverse, and confirm fiber content and care instructions from the bolt end or product page before buying, especially for blends whose behavior differs from pure cotton or wool.

Buy a swatch first whenever color or texture is critical, and view it in daylight; store lighting flatters and distorts in roughly equal measure. Ask about shrinkage — cotton twill generally benefits from pre-washing before cutting — and buy a little extra yardage, because twill's diagonal makes pattern matching and nap-like layout considerations slightly more demanding than plain fabrics. Finally, keep notes on what you bought and where: twill is a fabric sewers return to for years, and the store that supplied a perfect chino twill once is the natural first stop for the next project.

Twill Fabric Stores Directory

Retailers from the original Twill Fabric Stores guide, presented with the descriptions that accompanied them.