Where do you live? In some areas there are design centers open to the public where you can look at most of the fabric lines. Failing that, why not google it and try to get some samples.

I recommend getting on a first name basis with a good upholsterer. They really know their stuff and can be very helpful.

If you are recovering it with more expensive fabric it may pay to hire it out. Gary always returns any leftover fabric to me when he's done. Typically there's only a couple of square feet left. I know from making my own box cushions that I have way more waste than that.

This company was recommended by someone on my "picking upholstery fabric" thread. I believe that someone was from that company though, but it was helpful. (so far)

Boy was I ignorant about velvet fabric, thought I would just mossy on in a fabric store and find a color I liked. Why is there only crushed velvet? Ewww I don't like that! Since the housing crash the surviving design centers near have a very small boring limited selection. It seems most of the little designer fabric shops specialize in coastal and tropical. Now if I wanted to drive almost two hours south for my two yards of fabric choices would be plentiful as there are lots of places in or near Miami or probably Boca.
I'm going to try another little shop close but if I have no luck I will most likely order samples or the fabric online.

Did you ever try learning about velvet fabric? It's like a secret world or something or a guarded cult of velvet knowledge. I saw some truly beautiful velvet upholstered furniture on Houzz but did not find one mention of a particular makername/brand. When you try reading up on it so you have a bit of clue you come away with zip and only some knowledge of rubs. I guess I did learn something; the velvets with silk seem to be $125 a yard and up. I want to splurge a little but not that much. I would if I was doing it for myself but this is for my son. The little tufted benches I'm to upholster are where I'm planning on bringing in an accent color so it does need to look somewhat nice.

My wonderful wonderful upholsterer that I had for years has retired early. He did everything with true craftsmanship. His prices were low; he made his own hours and couldn't speak English well. He was a happy joyous man. Over the last few years word got out of his greatness in his craft. Once he became popular and was sought after by the decorators/designers and time lines and buried in work he became very unhappy.He nearly went mad finding employee's up to his standards to help with the load. So, I have no upholsterer but have been keeping my eyes and ears open. There are a few assembly line type upholstery shops in the book though. I can do small jobs myself (like the benches). I do plan on taking upholstery classes down the road.

My connections in the design world are non existent. I do not live in a very creative part of Florida. The few I have met around here are very standard. This is why I teach myself not only about products but also about install...and do the install as well. Don't get me wrong though, there are many lovely homes around here, lovely in the matchy matchy way.

It's always the little things...

For a boy, I wouldn't personally do velvet. No how. No way. Too much money spent for something that will get Cheeto stains. Choose something cotton in a very fine print that gives the illusion of texture instead and that you won't feel bad about trying to spot clean and failing to get out the mud stains. Velvet CAN NOT be spot cleaned. It always shows the spot, even if you remove the stain, because it changes the fabric texture.

The best finds are mostly all online, unfortunately, so you have to rely on information about fabric content to tell you what kind of "hand" the fabric will have (= its thickness, weight, stretch and pliability), and tools like the Online Auction Color Chart to tell you what the color really looks like.

When you're searching:
If you want it to be super soft, look for pure cotton -- for better wear and tear, find cotton blends.

If you want it to be durable and have that great rich sheen without being too Elvis, look for mohair velvet.

For durability and a rich color depth, but without the sheen of mohair, get wool or a wool blend.

For toughness but monotone color and very little pile, get a "microfiber" fabric -- I don't really consider these true velvets, but the polyester can be soft and some folks love how easy they are to clean.

For lots of shine but less durability, and a slinkier more pliable fabric, get silk or a silk blend.

Avoid all rayon upholstery velvet - it wears terribly and can look cheap. Rayon is often marketed as "chenille" - avoid this fabric for furniture you're actually going to use. Crushed velvet for costumery (and what you found at Joanne's) is most often rayon.

Nylon is what makes upholstery fabric strong and wear-proof, but you don't want too much of it or the fabric becomes very stiff and scratchy -- think nubby fabrics from the mid-century era. My guy made me reupholster a gorgeous orange-nylon-upholstered sofa from 1962, because it was so rough and scratchy to bare skin that we avoided sitting on it. It's now happy in mohair velvet. :-)

Kravet, DuraLee, Knoll, Maharam, JB Martin, etc -- all the major brands -- have big velvet selections. Robert Allen quality is varying but often quite nice, and easier to find for the average consumer.

My recommendation: I've purchased dozens of different high end velvets over the past few years, virtually all from two places: certain sellers on eBay and the web site fabricguru.com. The eBay guys are great, they are in Michigan or North Carolina and purchase remnants and overstock from the big furniture factories.

designerfabrics*rr (great deals, I comb through his new listings every week): all this week's listings

silverstone fabrics (more expensive, but always lots of mohair): Silverstone Fabrics listings

FabricGuru.com -- super shipping, prompt service and very friendly. Great fabrics and excellent deals.

Hope that helps -- give me a holler if I can offer any more input. Happy hunting!

Circuspeanut, I can't thank you enough for all this information. Have you ever though of starting a blog with velvet/fabrics info? I can't be the only one that would really appreciate your knowledge. I haven't gone through all the sites you listed yet but was wondering what you thought of the Travers epingle velvet (ebay site) for small tufted benches? Live Oak gave me a good reminder on the clean ability or lack of with good velvet. The epingle on there now is more yardage than I need but I'm thinking maybe I should keep an eye on this type? It says it's stain resistant. However, will I then be giving up a lot of wow factor? The site did not mention what blend the fabric is. Microfiber makes my skin crawl so I'm not interested in that sort of blend. What do you know about epingle?

Also I need at least 15 yards for my wing chairs and I can't find any bargains for that much. I really want to keep it under $30/yd. And I am petrified of making the wrong decision, not that anyone would care but me. Blue is not a very popular color. Maybe I should take that as a sign?

The 100% cotton one seems so much heavier than the cotton poly blend (that's a better color and has a higher "rub" rating.

Sorry to burst in this thread only to whine. I've started 3 threads about this project already! And I'm not getting anywhere :(

Commiserations,
Maureen

OK. More on velvet/epingle: all fabric is made of many tiny woven loops. Velvet is made with longer loops, then they are sheared; the bed of resulting fibers is called the "pile" -- soft and can be bent one way or another under your hand (think shag carpet in miniature). It will have a rich deep sheen when you hold the fabric and look at it from one direction, and not from the other - this direction is called the "nap". Nap becomes very important for larger pieces like sofas - you want to design the cover so that the nap runs in the same direction on each part of the piece, or else it will look like the fabric changes color randomly (and not in a good way). This won't be an issue with a simple square or rectangular ottoman, unless it has a very obvious front side.

Epingle is velvet fabric that retains some loops unsheared, creating interesting patterns and textures. It's often very geometric. The real stuff takes a special loom which makes it really expensive. The good stuff is still pretty good; the bad stuff is horrid. Jterrilynn, most commercial upholstery fabrics are treated with stain repellent, thus the "stain free" label -- it doesn't necessarily mean it's cheap or plastic.

It gets harder when you want fabric that isn't treated with stain repellent, and I'm always on the lookout for general health reasons (cats, for instance, have been found to carry extremely heavy loads of these toxic chemicals, because they are perpetually sitting on soft treated fabric, then grooming themselves).

Jterrilynn, if you're doing tufts, I'd probably recommend staying away from any designs that are regular or linear; it can be difficult to calculate the folds exactly, and some furniture is not exactly proportioned, which could result in the pattern looking crooked. You might do better with a solid or generally textured velvet for your first try?

And what the heck, a few photos, although velvet is really hard to capture:
Here's some silk velvet I haven't found a use for yet:

Cotton/blend velvet is classic and a great all-purpose fabric. Definitely go for a higher end maker - I've made pillows of the cotton upholstery velvet Joanne's sells, and it's not nearly as thick or durable. Cotton is a little duller to the hand than silk. This is a chair I just did in 100% cotton velvet:

Wool velvet is thick and I find it scratchy, although it can be dyed in breathtaking colors and is insanely durable. I have thick insulating curtains made out of it; think Grandmother's winter swing coat:

Mohair's a little shinier than regular wool, depending on the type, but still thicker and stiffer than cotton, and not as shiny as silk; it's got the same sheen as a healthy animal's pelt. In fact, here's a beast on his favorite mohair velvet hummock:

Same beast, same mohair velvet, different chair:

My cats do not care for these chairs but may change their minds when they're covered in velvet. Do velvets attract alot of hair?

jterrilynn - sorry for the hijack. I'll be back later

Maureen please do not feel you are highjacking! This is a learning thread to be shared by all. Please feel free to ask or share what you know.

Jterrilynn, most upholstery fabric is pre-treated by the manufacturer -- this is definitely true of any fabric "sold to the trade" as most of the eBay remnants are, in order to pass federal law for upholstered products. It's a necessary evil and a tradeoff for stain resistance. I just wanted to mention it as a factor I'm more cognizant of now that I have cats in the house. Go for the silk if you find a good piece!

Mmmm, linen. Linen is also a great velvet, but depending on the manufacturer, I've found some of the pieces I've gotten to be a little loose/floppy, as in not woven quite tightly enough for the rigors of upholstering. But it's so gorgeous, with a deep pile and a lovely hand. Linen wears quite well as regular woven upholstery fabric, so I imagine linen as velvet does the same. It does stain and wrinkle easily, though. How many of those white Belgian linen sofas has Restoration Hardware actually sold..?

If you do get a spot on your velvet, which is really inevitable unless you live in a museum or use charming plastic sofa covers, you can always try a fabric steamer (or even a steam iron) to get the nap running the right way again after cleaning it. This has always worked for me; just be careful and use a towel between steam and velvet. Alternately, if it's relatively small, you can clean the entire piece in order to minimize the spot you've gotten wet. There are fabric cleaners that don't contain water (based on benzene or similar?) so they carry less spotting danger, ostensibly, but I find them a bit scary so haven't tried them.

A wee gallery.
Here is silk velvet in a similar color:

This was the linen:

Here's a cotton blend:

Pure cotton:

Cotton velveteen, which has a very low pile, almost like a brushed denim:

Mohair:

Alpaca wool:

I couldn't find a great image of alpaca wool fabric. At any rate, it looks a lot like this:

Rayon (viscose):

Rayon (viscose) chenille:

Microfiber:

One chair is already at the upholsterers. I want to either pick this indigo fabric or just bring the chair home and forget about it. Now I am even wondering how much I like these chairs anyway. Crazy huh?

Jterrilynn - Thanks. I think with stools I would be much more adventurous. Especially as you are DIY. Are these for your son's house? My teenaged sons won't even let me pick out a t-shirt for them!

Circuspeanut, I hope I have been a good grasshopper and bought the right thing. I bought this Silverstone Netherlands Dutch Mohair. It's 100% mohair upholstery fabric with I believe a cotton back. Its a steamer so it was very inexpensive at $25 a yd. Maybe I did a bit of a gamble on a piece that will need parts steamed for wrinkles but I have a steamer and there will be just enough fabric leftover incase I screw one of the little tufted bench seats up. I did save the fabric I took off for a template; I think if I take my time I'll be able to get it right. The key word here is time; everything I do takes soooooooooooo much time.