Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Neoprene

Suddenly overcome by the urge to sew things out of neoprene. That fabric for wetsuits and insulated bottle carriers, you know? I've been online searching for places to buy it. Costs an arm and a leg. I should've bought it in Singapore while I was still living there and actually knew shops where you could get it (along with custom-order wetsuit tailors who might have bins of neoprene scraps I could possibly snivel and beg for). Drats. Still- imagine the possibilities: insulated picnic totes for the summer, lunch bags for the kids for school, little wading shoes for the lakes. Argh. SR Harris, our closest fabric warehouse, only stocks neoprene in camel. CAMEL! Which child will want to be seen with accessories in that shade of blah? Why is everyone still using oilcloth*? Neoprene is the new hip thing. Mothers of boys, are you reading this?





P.S. Off to the children's museum after lunch. After getting hit by an insanely delicious idea like this neoprene thing, I hate all my current wimpy sewing projects. I need to leave the house.



*Probably because it's dirt cheap by comparison. Not to mention actually available.

24 comments:

  1. I'd love to know if you find any shops online that sell it for a decent price. I had a customer interested in some Atari covers made out of neoprene, until he found out the price!! So expensive!!

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  2. Couldn't you just dye it I read somewhere the sublimation process works on it. Somthing to look in to possibly!

    But it wouldn't help with the cost sadly :)

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  3. It always seems like the most fun fabrics are the hardest to find. Bummer! I know it wouldn't help with the water-proofing aspect, but you could use Thinsulate for the lunch boxes/picnic totes. It's sold by the yard a couple places online for about $8/yard.

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  4. You can buy neoprene remnants at fabric outlets. It's great and comes in fun colors and makes great camera bags. I'm in California so maybe that's why I see it everywhere?

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  5. I went looking for neoprene sometime last year, and gave up on it. Let me know if you find a good place to buy some!

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  6. I think they now carry neoprene at Jo-Ann stores. Mine has it in a few colors and prints. I think it should be with the utility fabrics but as it is on a big roll it is with the decorator fabrics in my local store.

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  7. Used to work at a HUGE 3 floor fabric store (Baer Fabrics in Louisville). They are no longer in business, but before the internet, it was the only place to get the stuff for hundreds of miles. So many amazing projects made from it before it was cool!

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  8. I can't actually come up with which country you live in, so forgive me if the comment ends up being pointless... but I know that a couple of years ago you could get neoprene and Joann's or Hancocks in store. I wanted to make a laptop sleeve with it. I think it was pretty basicly colored (black maybe) and back with the weird fabrics in a bin.

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  9. When I was in England a couple years ago I went to a fabric store (yes, it was on my "sight-seeing" list) that sold neoprene. I thought that was pretty cool but had no idea what I'd use if for so I didn't buy any. That about sums up my buying/sewing with neoprene experience!

    P.S. The store is The Cloth House & it's definitely on the list for next time!

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  10. I live on the coast. I'll have to watch the thrift stores for wetsuits that can be repurposed!
    I can think of some pretty cool ideas!

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  11. Seattle Fabrics carries a lot of (I bought some scraps there), but it seemed on the expensive side.

    Haha, maybe you can cut apart a broken wetsuit. :D

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  12. We are on the same wave length. I've been thinking of all sorts of projects to make out a neoprene. Good grief, it's a pricey fabric.

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  13. I'm lost or behind the times or both. What would you make using neoprene? Please share with us..

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  14. The first place I would look locally is a store that sells materials for outdoor gear -- fabric and buckles and so on for tents and ski clothes and that sort of thing. (They have a repair service too.) Got anything like that in your area?

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  15. Please do a more in depth post on what you would make out of neoprene! Especially for boys pretty pretty please! (Mother of three boys)

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  16. I also looked around to find it and it seemed that the easiest option was getting at wet suit suppliers. Eventually never bought it...but I believe it's a super cool material

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  17. I'm concerned about making any food-holding receptacle out of the oilcloth, or the PUL fabrics because they are plasticized often with BPA containing plastics. Do you know what neoprene actually is? There were big warnings a couple of years ago about children's lunch bags containing lead (LEAD!), and I went on a discarding flurry then. Now I would like to make new lunch bags that are insulated and lined, and resistant to leakage, but am at a loss for food-safe fabrics. Ideas?

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  18. Have a gizmo used for electronic flashes that is about the size of a fat pack of cigarettes, would dearly like to find someone who could make about 5 of these for me as well as some other camera related stuff that I'd like very much to protect in the bag. Seems to be when I googled "custom neoprene tailoring", not only did I find this site but also images of rolls of the stuff under images. Maybe a wholesaler has remnants?

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  19. I have a few wetsuits we don't use if you'd like. I'd happily ship them to you knowing they might be used!

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  20. CRF_kitty (Flickr)May 7, 2011 at 9:34 PM

    I bought some last week at Seattle Fabrics http://www.seattlefabrics.com/. Spent $22 for a 2x3 foot piece - double faced, black on one side, white on the other, I think it was 3 or 4mm. Bought it to make an iPad sleeve for my mom. They had various colors, weights, etc. Pretty good selection. The black and white just seemed very Apple to me. :-)

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  21. Found a site. Large selection of thicknesses, styles & colors. Even saw one that had adhesive on one side. How cool.
    http://www.buycheapr.com/us/result.jsp?ga=us19&q=neoprene+sale+fabric

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  22. Would you still remember which shops you saw them in Singapore? I would love to lay my hands on some! Thank!

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    Replies
    1. emy, shoot me an email and I'll send you some links. My email add. is in the sidebar.

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  23. hi! I'm looking for neoprene in Singapore and I came across your post while googling. Would you be so kind to let me know where can I get Neoprene in Singapore? Thank you so much! :)

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