Cotton Jersey

I’ve sourced my cotton jersey from three online retailers: Spritex, SOS From Texas, and Fabric Master.

Spritex

This is my favorite retailer for three reasons: colorfast selection, affordable, and locally made. They have a great selection of organic cotton jersey grown in Texas and milled in North Carolina. It typically sells for $12 or less a yard and they’re about 56-58” wide. After washing the fabric you can combine different colors without worrying about them bleeding onto each other. This is the main fabric I use for teaching my t-shirt making courses. The jersey feels soft and high quality.

I have purchased medium weight organic jersey (190 gsm/5.60 oz/yard) in black, coffee, China blue, antique, burgundy, and graphite.

SOS From Texas

This is also one of my favorite retailers because they sell high quality organic cotton jersey grown in Texas and milled in North Carolina at an affordable price. On a drive across Texas I saw many cotton fields and saw a sign for SOS Organic Cotton by some of the fields and I looked them up. I ordered a sample to make a t-shirt and I liked it so much I bought a 72 yard bolt. In jersey they only sell organic undyed 44” tubular cotton jersey. I use this fabric in all of my t-shirt courses. It’s 5.7 oz/yard or 193 gsm, a good weight for medium weight t-shirts.

Fabric Master

When I got started making t-shirts I wanted some inexpensive practice fabric. I found just the right thing at this store, wide 72” yards for under $3/yard in multiple colors at a good weight. The dyes used in these fabrics bleed significantly, especially the red, so they are only good for single color garments and expect significant bleeding and fading (the red jersey will turn everything pink if you wash it with other colors). They ship pretty fast and at $8/order, it’s not too expensive. If you’d like to have some practice cotton jersey, this is a great option. I bought 10 yards of red jersey to practice t-shirt making and embroidery on cotton jersey. I enjoyed being able to experiment and practice without the worry of wasting too much money or high quality fabric. In short, the fabric here I would advise to use for practice knit garments only, or use if you’re on a very tight budget and cannot afford higher quality. Whatever you do, please don’t wash this jersey with any other colors you want to stay that color, at least for the first 5 or more washes.