My volunteer work making coats for adopted greyhounds has dwindled over the last year to an occasional special-order coat. Fleece fabric by the yard has been difficult to find, now that JoAnn Fabrics is out of business. Making many greyhound coats required an ongoing source of affordable fleece. Of course, Amazon has fleece fabric by the yard, but at $16.90/yard it’s incredibly expensive. To make 4 coats I need 6 yards of fabric, 3 yards for the outsides and 3 yards for the linings. It would cost over $100 just for the fabric alone!
Recently, I had an email from a greyhound owner asking if I still made coats. I had to share my difficulty finding fabric. Finally, today Bert and I took a drive to Surplus City…about 40 minutes from here…down I-99 toward Altoona, PA. They used to carry lots of giant rolls of fabric, many of them fleece. I was hoping to see what was available and how much it would cost. I figured I’d pick up some fabric…if it was available and affordable!
The rolls of fleece were limited, compared to how much they had several years ago. The fleece was pretty thin but at $6.99/yard I could at least make a few lightweight coats. They would work for spring or fall weather but would not be warm enough for a cold Pennsylvania winter! Here are the shelves of fleece rolls:
Some pretty weird colors, but I finally decided to buy 3 yards each of these colors:
I really thought I was picking colors that would go well together, but the lighting was not very good. I think the prints could be the outside or the lining of the solid colors. I’ll have to wash them before working with them…they were pretty dusty.
So, at $6.99/yard I bought 12 yards of fabric…enough to make 8 coats! How about that! I’ll offer to make one for the person inquiring about a coat and make the rest for Nittany Greyhounds. That made me happy today!
Maybe there’ll be a few cozy greyhound coats for spring!
If you have comments or questions, please email me directly at maryjkisner@gmail.com.
