Tales Of A Fourth Generation Textile Executive: 108″ Fabric Information Continued (PART 2)

(If you missed Part I, here it is)

It is now 5:09 PM on Monday. Tales Of A Fourth Generation Textile Executive Scott has been short on luck lately….no joke. Usually, when I make excuses about why my blogs are late, they are sort of, kind of, jokes. This time, there are no jokes.

First off, I took a short trip to Florida on Wednesday last week to spend the rest of the February break with my kids, wife and in-laws. We were to come home on Saturday. We were all aboard the plane and lo and behold they told us to deplane because our flight was cancelled due to snow in New York. So we turned around, deplaned, retrieved our bags, re-rented a car and headed back to the in-laws house. It was a total deja vu.

Thereafter, we scrambled to get a flight back home. I desperately needed to get home because I have work plans to travel this week so I had to prepare and get my act together. They were telling us no flight until Tuesday. Ugh. So I called in a favor to a dear old friend of mine that worked at one of the major airlines (thanks Ruth!) and she hooked me up. I used to donate fabric to this airline’s charity quilt program. That just shows that giving to charity pays off in spades. Unfortunately, I was the only one in my family that got to fly home Sunday. The rest of the family is coming home on Tuesday which is good because it is darn cold here. Oh yeah, did I mention that it was 30 one of the days in Florida…only on the last day did we swim outside.

Anyway, the second issue was this. I went down to the basement this morning to run (keeping up with the New Year’s running resolution) on the treadmill. As I walk in to the basement, the floor is starting to fill up with water. Kill me please! Mind you, last year we had a flood in our basement and had to redo the entire basement. In addition, we had a flood in our upstairs bathroom and have a nightmare construction undertaking that will begin soon. Anyway, after a little running around like a chicken without a head, I figured out that a spigot for the outdoor hose burst. When I turned the main water power off, it all stopped. It could have been a total disaster and I was fortunate to have caught the problem when I did and thanked god that I wasn’t on the flight home Tuesday. I guess everything happens for a reason.

Needless to say, I was stuck home all day today dealing with plumbers and flood cleanup crews. No running water, no shower, no toilet, but I did have heat. This goes under the heading of, “you don’t know what you got until it is gone.” It was pretty annoying not to have water. Enough of my boring life anyway. Let me give you some info on a couple of details I left off of my 108″ wide blog part 1.

All or the Jaftex Companies that run quilt backs run them in 18 yard double and rolled pieces. Customers typically use 3 yards at a time when buying quilt backs.
One of the great benefits of using 108″ wide fabric is that you don’t have to spend so much time to piece the 44″ fabric together. No seams. You end up with a nice clean look.
On an apples to apples comparison, the 108″ fabric is a cheaper option than 44″ fabric on a cost per square foot basis.
Printing 108″ fabric is a little more difficult than printing 44″ goods. Simply due to the fact that the fabric is wider and is conducive to more complications.
The double and rolling of the 108″ fabric is complicated too because the fabric has to be folded in half several times to fit on the board. If the fabric gets mis-aligned at all, the bolt gets all wonky if you know what I mean. We obviously try our best to avoid these types of issues, but sometimes the fabric just gets off line and it is hard to recover.
Most of the 108″ fabric we offer is cotton sheeting, but The Blank Quilting Corp and A.E. Nathan Co., Inc. offer flannel 108″ too.

At this point, I am totally fried. Thanks for your patience with me this week. Have a great week and stay warm. I am heading to Boston which is probably the only place on this earth colder than New York….and my luck just keeps rolling on.

Down On His Luck Scott