Review: SAS Fabrics Phoenix, AZ

Review for:

SAS Fabrics

9840 N 19th Ave

Phoenix, AZ 85021-1906

Get Directions

(602) 943-7777

(I am providing the 19th Ave location information because I'm not sure the Indian School location information on Google is correct, although I did go to another location.)

The other day a friend took me to SAS Fabrics in Phoenix, AZ. I went to the 12th St/Indian School Rd location, although they do have more locations in the Valley area (see contact info above). I had never been, but heard stories. You know, the kind you dismiss as nothing but rumor, like Bigfoot.

The outside is uninspiring, with a large sign advertising that they have air conditioning (I thought, what is this, the 50's?), which I suppose in Phoenix, where summer temps can climb to above 110º F for weeks, isn't such a bad thing to advertise. Apparently before they revamped the place (and closed it for a time) there was no A/C, only an evap/swamp cooler, which for those that don't know, only works as long as the humidity is low.

Through the windows you can see piles of fabric in all colors. And then you walk in...

I've never seen the like. JoAnns doesn't even compare! From one wall to the next there was nothing but shelves with rolls of fabric, tables piled with cut pieces and bolts and boxes full of fabrics, trim, lace, ribbon and anything else you can imagine a sewist needing. They sell fabric both by the POUND and by yard. The prices are inbelievable. Beautiful silk for $6.99+ per yard, denim for $2.99 per yard, and suitings of all sorts for $2.99 per pound among other things. Their selection of faux fur was huge, they had a whole wall for upholstery fabrics (although I didn't browse those), fancies of all sorts from spangled to beaded. Cotton, silk, poly, wool and probably linen as well were there. They had boxes full of iron-ons in a great selection and while some were cheesy, there were others that were not. The only thing missing was a huge collection of buttons to browse through, which I was told by the friend that they do have at their 19th Ave location. They did have some buttons, but not a lot.

I was awestruck! It being a weekday and around 3pm as well, the place had a decent amount of people in there shopping, holding rolls of fabric. The cutters tables were very cramped, and they obviously didn't have enough room to roll out some of the large rolls. You took part in helping cut sometimes, as an extra hand to hold something, or to help unroll. After getting your fabric cut, your bag of fabric is placed behind the counter and they hand you a receipt that you then take to the cashier who finds your bag by your reciept number.

They accept most major credit cards and are open from 10am-6pm Monday through Saturday and closed on Sunday.

All in all, I will be back! I went there with a budget of $50 and only spent half on it, and came out very happy. I got 5 yards of a dark gray wool/polyester blend suiting for $2.99 per pound (about 3 pounds total) , 10 yards of some neat trim for $.25 per yard and 4 yards of denim for $2.99 per yard. And those are just "practical" things I bought. I think the next time I go back I'll get something a little more fun. A note though; there are no tags to tell you what the fabric is. You kind of need to know by feel what type of fabric is what and how blends feel as well, and treat later accordingly. It's a little like buying fabric at the thrift store, in that you don't know for sure exactly what you're getting since there are no tags, or labels stating the fabric content.

SAS Fabric gets 5 stars in my opinion. It could be better in indentification and sorting, but why fix something if it isn't broken? My friend called it "our Mood" (but cheaper!). perhaps I was just awestruck, but the place was amazing to me.

Fabric Splurge

I don't often buy retail fabric. I sew on a budget and most of my fabric comes from thrift stores. But, I've gone into a certain "large chain store" fabric department and touched this stuff every time I've seen it. I finally broke down and bought 4 yards of it:



I figured that 4 yards would be enough to make a long skirt or short dress (or a couple short things), although I'm thinking more along the skirt line since I'm not a very "dress" person. I like my 2 piece outfits better than a 1 piece dress. I think I'm a little neurotic that way. Actually I'm a jeans and shirt gal and I think having 2 pieces rather than 1 keeps me in my comfort zone. Which, I don't like to leave often, lol!

I wear a lot of muted colors. Or as I like to call them, "non-colors". Black, gray, dark reds and blues. I will also wear pastels if they aren't too bright, like in this fabric. This fabric gives me a little cheer to my normally toned down look. I'm terrified of bright colors in the yellow, orange and bright red range.

I got this orange/peach sweater once from my mother because she said that I never wore color. It was hideous. The sweater itself was cute and in a trendy style but the color...oh the horror! I'm also very pale and freckly and this color was NOT a good color for me. I know my mother was only trying to get me out of my box so to speak, but she could have asked me what color range I would wear if I was going to wear bright colors. I think ever since then I've been very stubborn about letting color into my daily wardrobe (that story took place probably over 10 years ago). And yes, I did give the sweater a try. I wore it twice, once on the day I got it and again at a family function. It was "that" sweater to me.

So perhaps in the next few months (I sew slowly and like to procrastinate) I'll have a pretty little piece to show using this fabric.

Oh What a Haul!

I haven't been sewing a lot lately because I've been recovering from a medical procedure. It's had me pretty sore and not wanting to move about much. But, to lift my spirits, Ed and I went to a thrift store that isn't that close to our place, one we don't get to go to a lot but one that usually yields something cool, even if it's only a book. This time I went in search of these bags of mens ties they sometimes have for a few bucks. Instead Ed once again spotted a sewing machine!

This time it was a Babylock BL6600, all fancy and electronic sans manual of course. It has the same amount of stitches as my other babylock, but this one is much newer and in better shape. The price tag was a little steep for our budget, which is pretty non-exsistent right now, but how could we pass up a $$$ sewing machine for under $40? Yes, under $40. To top that they were having a deal where if you spent $50 or over you got a coupon for $5 off your next purchase. So I had to go find something else to round out the total. There were no ties to be found that weren't priced singly, but I found yet another bag of fabric that looked like it had a few neat and colorful items in it for $3. And of course we had to get some books. Always books.

Once home, I opened up the bag and whoa what a haul! All of the fabric in the photo was crammed into a bag about the size of a brown shopping bag. Yards and yards of gorgeous fabric (and a few scary ones too)! Usually there are a few good choices in these grab bags, and a lot of "eh" scraps and such. This one had only one print of scraps. The rest was between one yard and 6! 6 yards of a lining fabric was the big yardage but most averaged about 2 yards per piece.

In with the bag were a couple, obviously, vintage pieces. The white, orange and green piece in the lower right is one, along with the burgandy/brown and white elephant home dec weight fabric. There is also a curious white, blue and gold toile-like fabric of Japanese scenes with little Mickey and Minnie dotted throughout. Ed actually spotted that one when I showed it to him; I completely missed it! I'd love to find out where it originates from, or when it was made but alas, there is nothing similar online that I can find or perhaps I'm not searching right.

The green fabric in the upper right is an adorable border print with little people holding umbrellas, or newspapers over their heads and walking around. There is 4 yards of this fabric.

Boy, talk about a good haul! This just goes to show that you can find some remarkable sewing items in thrift stores for not a lot of money. The one's I frequent aren't the smokey, antiquey type either but modern places like Goodwill and Savers, with the occassional independent thrown in there when I can find them.

Sure, you have to "make do" with what you have (and supplement it with new/on sale fabric) sometimes, but once you build up your thirft store fabric stash, usually you have a nice little selection to work from.

Thrift Store Fabric and Current Project

This is the latest acquisition from Savers (thrift store)


One yard of the butterflies for 99 cents and about 2 1/2 yards of the funky orange retro stretch twill for $2.99. The orange print just screamed to me to buy it, though I am NOT a fan of orange at all. But, look at that pattern! So funky! I was thinking a handbag of some sort from it.

My current project is McCall's 8107, princess seam dress, view G (the center one with the belt). I'm not really a dress person, but I figure if I go to the trouble of making a muslin, doing the fitting and then another muslin and finally a finished object that I will probably wear it! So far I just cut out the second muslin after the first turned out to be a size too big. Who knew? I should have started with the high bust measurement, but that hasn't worked for me in the past, so I decided to just go with a size 20 off the bat. I was swimming in the dress (what I hoped would be a wearable muslin). I have had to do an FBA on the size 18, and trimmed away some excess in the back. The book Fit For Real People was instrumental in learning how to do adjustments on princess seamed dresses; I didn't know it needed all that!

I hope this fitting and muslin does it; by now I 'm a little tired of all the pattern pieces. Thankfully it sews up rather quickly, even with the little inside out thing the pattern has you do with the facings.

Now, where to find a belt for this dress. I don't even own a belt!

Color me

I often get yardage or used sheets at thrift stores to try out new things, use for muslins and what not. I got about 4 yards of what I thought was cotton quite some time ago, until I did a burn test this evening and found it to be some kind of poly cotton. I also picked up a queen (or king?) sized flannel sheet to mess with. What I ended up doing with them both was testing my first ever batch of RIT dye on scraps of them. Both were an off white, with the flannel having a pattern along the top edge, which is where I took the scrap from, and the poly cotton having a "natural" linen type look to it.

Flannel is on the left, the blend is on the right

Quite a difference! It was an interesting test. I used the bucket/sink and hot water method to dye these as I don't have a pot that I can dedicate to stovetop dyeing. The cotton flannel took a deeper color almost immediately and seemed to rinse out easier as well. I chose the Royal Blue color because I have an obsession with blue, thinking that no matter what it turned out like, I would probably like it no matter the hue. And, I was correct. Both of them I like and now just need to figure out what to do with them. I don't know if the whole 4 yards (minus 1/4 or so that I cut off for this test) will fit in my container, which is an oh-so-fancy plastic storage container that I got from Walmart.