Giant List of Denim Fabric, Supplies and Resources

Welcome to Day 2 of Denim Week!  Today we cover denim fabric, supplies, and resources.  We’re excited to share a WHOLE bunch of resources for sewing denim.  Fabrics, supplies, resources, kits, and more.  We had so much fun virtually shopping and putting together this resource for you.  Be sure to check out Day 1: Introduction for the giveaway of Cone Mills denim and patterns!

Online Denim Fabric Sources:

First of all, a few suggestions for buying denim fabric.  If you’re planning to make a garment that uses denim, it is probably a complex pattern and will take you quite a bit of time and effort.  So it’s important that you use good quality denim.  Buying fabric online can be a very difficult experience because you can’t feel the fabric and check it’s quality and amount of stretch (if any) and drape and so on.  So our top 3 tips for buying fabric online are:

1. Buy from small fabric shops.  They only have space for good quality fabric, can’t afford to earn a bad reputation from selling poor quality fabric, and are probably run by a fabric lover themselves!
2. Buy fabric you know is good quality already.  We’ve included denim that falls into this category below.
3. Request swatches of fabric before buying yardage.  If you don’t know much about the fabric you’re buying, a set of swatches can be your education and ultimately save you a lot of money.

Let’s start with some small shops I highly recommend.

Threadbare Fabrics has a section of their shop called The Denim Store.  You can get really good quality Cone Mills denim and also Japanese denim.  They also sell hardware kits.  Threadbare Fabrics is sponsoring Denim Week by giving away 2 yards of Cone Mills denim.  Enter the giveaway here.

Raspberry Creek Fabrics stocks a few good quality denim fabrics like this gingham denim and stripe denim.

Topstitch has a very nice collection of high quality Cone Mills, Robert Kaufman, and Art Gallery Fabric denim.

CaliFabrics supply of denim is always changing, but we’ve found it to be good quality.  Above is a tribal denim fabric and a selvedge denim.

Moving on to some bigger fabric purveyors, we recommend you buy fabric you know is good quality already, or that you buy swatches first if possible.

Fabric.com has a large selection of denim, but unless you buy a swatch first, it’s safer to stick with denim you know is good quality like the ones pictured above.  Clockwise from top left: Robert Kaufman railroad denim in black, Art Gallery Fabric Canyon Sunset denim, Telio stretch floral denim, Cloud 9 tinted sea glass denim.

Did you know you can buy fabric on Amazon?  It’s true!  However, you can’t buy swatches first, so we recommend you stick to good quality denims like the ones above.  Clockwise from top left: Floral denim (we used this for our 1st Sandbridge Skirt,) Ralph Lauren black denim, Art Gallery Fabric brick denim, Cone Mills denim.

Fabric and supplies all in one shop

Next there are quite a few places that sell both denim fabric and supplies needed for making jeans and jean skirts and other denim patterns.  Several of these bundle the supplies you need together into kits where you get exactly what you need!  A few shops we can confidently recommend are:

Indiesew has both denim fabric and jeans hardware kits.

La Mercerie has Cone Mills denim fabric and jeans hardware kits.

Blackbird Fabrics has denim fabric, kits, thread, rivets, zippers, needles, and the cutest anvil you can imagine!  See everything here.

Imagine Gnats has denim and jean making notions.

Fancy Tiger Crafts has a brick and mortar store, and lots of denim and supplies online too.

Stylemaker Fabrics has a very unique, high-quality selection of denim like the ones shown above.  Clockwise from top left: olive stretch denim, iridescent stretch denim, tropical denim, tomato stretch denim.  They also sell jeans hardware kits.

In-Store Denim Resources

If you’re not ready to buy denim online, most likely if you live in the USA, you can find a JoAnn Fabrics store not too far away.  This is a great option because you can feel the fabric and get an idea about the quality before purchasing.  Here’s a very small collection of denim you can get at JoAnns, both in-store and online.

Clockwise from top left: Pink 10 oz bull denim, 7 oz stretch floral denim, patchwork denim, camo denim.

If you don’t have a JoAnn’s near you, see if your local quilt shop, or other fabric shop has denim in stock.

Denim Hardware kits:

We found several shops that sell only hardware kits, and not fabric.  These are convenient as they have everything you’ll need for your project.  Most of these shops are companies with expert level knowledge about denim and hardware kits, so you can be assured you’re getting good quality.  Here are some we recommend:

Closet Case Patterns sells fly front and button front hardware kits.  They’re sponsoring the denim week giveaway with 1 jean pattern.  (Enter the giveaway here!)

DIBY Club has kits, classes, tutorials, and more resources here.

Stonemountain and Daughter has a patterns, notions, tools and hardware kits here.

Thread Theory has lots of notions, tools and supplies here.

Taylor Tailor has zippers, thread, buttons and rivets here.

Denim Notions:

If you don’t need a full kit, or you only need a few items, you can always buy all the pieces individually.  Here are some necessary supplies:

Denim zippers from Fabric.com

Thread for topstitching and sewing denim seams.

Jeans buttons from JoAnn’s.  Of course you can buy these in store too.

Denim needles are stronger than regular needles, and you can get them here.

Here is a jeans rivet tool kit you will need to install rivets.

International Denim Resources

We realize that most of these resources are in the USA and Canada, so if you’re located outside these 2 countries, we highly recommend checking out this International list by Megan Nielsen here.

That’s it for Day 2 of Denim Week!  If you made it this far, reward yourself by entering the giveaway!

See you tomorow for patterns, classes and tutorials that use denim fabric!

Affiliate links are used in this post for really amazing fabric and pattern we can wholeheartedly recommend.  If you click on one of our affiliate links, we may make a few pennies at no extra cost to you.  Thank you for supporting our small business!