Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I’ve recently discovered a great online store that sells batik fabrics (known as Bali fabrics in some parts of the US) at REALLY good prices. My first experience with them was to buy a yard each of six different fabrics that were on sale for less than US$10 a yard (that’s about $12 Australian, MUCH cheaper than the typical $25 per metre we pay here for batiks). Even their non-sale prices are much cheaper than here.  But as with any online purchase, shipping can make or break the deal.

The website — http://www.batiks.com — didn’t have any information on whether they shipped to Australia, nor what the shipping rates would be, so I emailed them. I got a reply within 24 hours, with enough detail to do my calculations and place an order. They notified me the day my parcel shipped, and I received it within two weeks. The fabrics were gorgeous!

I’d also signed up to their newsletter and a few weeks later found out they were having a ‘fat quarter frenzy’ of their batiks — US$25 for 25 fat quarters! That’s US$1 each!! Even cheap non-batik fat quarters in Australia start at $3.50 each and can often be around $7 each. It was too good a deal to pass up, so I ordered two mixed sets of fat quarters — 50 fat quarters for US$50. Even with shipping of US$26.90 (two parcels), the total of close to US$77 (AU$90), meant that each batik fat quarter cost me less than AU$2. As I said MUCH less than I’d pay here.

It was like Christmas opening my parcels and laying out all the fabrics on the kitchen counter top! Here they are, all wrapped up as they were when I pulled them out of the parcels (oh, and only two were the same!):

Will I order from them again? Absolutely! The communication is good, the service is prompt, and each transaction has been handled professionally. Now, if only they could add that they ship outside the US to their website, with approximate shipping prices…

Update 12 September 2009: I emailed batiks.com that I’d blogged about them. Within 12 hours I had a lovely reply from the owner of the store! Nice. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with good, old-fashioned personal service — it’ll get me coming back every time!

Over the past two or three months I’ve been really busy with work and haven’t had a lot of time to sew or to blog about it. I’ve only been making small things that I can knock out in hour-long blocks on spare weekend moments — things like luggage tags, bookmarks, and the occasional set of coasters. I’ve been trying to use up odds and ends of fabric that just can’t be used for anything else.

As a result, I’ve added quite a few more mostly ‘$10 and under’ gift ideas and ‘stocking stuffers’ to my Etsy store in the past few months. Here’s a preview — if you’d like to purchase any of these items or want to see more photos, visit my store.