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Your fabric shelf: show buyers the real fabrics you stock

6 minute read

When a buyer orders appliqué lettering, they are choosing a fabric. Without pictures, the order form can only offer them words like "cotton" or "fleece," and the buyer has to describe the print they are imagining — "something buffalo plaid, in red?" — and hope what arrives matches what was in their head. That guessing is where appliqué orders go sideways.

The fabric shelf fixes it. It is a set of tiles, one per fabric you stock, that lives on your Products page under "My fabrics." Once there is anything on it, your buyers stop choosing between words and start tapping the actual fabric: your buffalo check, your navy dot, your sunflower floral. What they pick is pinned to the order by name, so what you stitch is what they saw.

There are two ways to fill the shelf, and they work together. You can photograph fabrics and drop the photos in. Or you can drop in the receipt from your last fabric run, and Broidry puts every fabric on it onto the shelf for you — named and sorted, waiting for its photo.

What your buyers see

In the order form, when a buyer picks appliqué lettering, the question "Which fabric for the letters?" shows your shelf as a grid. Fabrics with photos show the photo. Fabrics you have not photographed yet still show up as a named tile — "Anti-Pill Fleece Solid, Navy" beats the bare word "fleece," even without a picture.

Under the grid there is a "Want something other than these?" box, so a buyer who needs a fabric you did not list can still ask. Your shelf never closes a door; it just makes the open ones visible.

The buyer's fabric picker: photographed fabric tiles next to named tiles that don't have photos yet.
The buyer's view. Photographed fabrics show the real thing; the rest show their name until you add a photo.
Note: A fabric with no photo is still fully orderable. The photo makes it sell better; it is never required.

Fill the shelf from a receipt

If you buy fabric at Joann, a quilt shop, or anywhere that hands you a receipt, you do not have to type any of it in. The same invoice drop that already reads your thread and blank orders now reads fabric too.

  1. 1Open your dashboard and go to Money, then the Expenses tab.
  2. 2Drop the receipt into "Drop in an invoice" — a photo of the paper receipt, a screenshot of an order confirmation, or a PDF. Up to three files at once.
  3. 3Check the review screen. Each fabric line is labeled "Appliqué fabric" and says what saving will do: "goes on your fabric shelf." If a line was read wrong, change its label right there; if you do not want a line saved, untick it.
  4. 4Tap Save. The whole receipt is filed as one expense in your books, and every kept fabric line lands on your shelf at the same time.
The invoice drop zone on the Money page's Expenses tab.

What the review screen tells you

Nothing is saved until you approve what was read — the review screen is your chance to check Broidry's work. For fabric lines, it also checks your shelf for you.

A fabric you already have says so: "already on your fabric shelf — won't be duplicated." Buying more of a fabric never stacks a second copy next to the first. And if the fabric was marked out of stock on your shelf, buying more flips it back in stock automatically — restocking is just dropping in the new receipt.

A fabric that is new to your shelf says "goes on your fabric shelf — add its photo on the Products page." It arrives named from the receipt — the print name when the receipt gives one, otherwise the line as written — and tagged with its fabric type. You can correct both later, and your word always wins.

The invoice review screen reading a Joann receipt: four lines labeled Appliqué fabric, two already on the shelf, two new, and a stabilizer line correctly kept out.
A Joann receipt after reading. Two fabrics matched the shelf, two are new, and the stabilizer stays an expense — it is not a fabric.
Note: Stabilizer, backing, and blank garments are never sent to the fabric shelf — only fabric bought to cut appliqué from: quilting cotton, fat quarters, fleece, minky, sequin fabric, and HTV sheets or rolls.

Add the photos, whenever you have a minute

A fabric that came from a receipt shows on your shelf as a dashed tile with an "Add a photo" button in the middle. Tap it, pick a photo of that fabric, and the tile becomes a real swatch. The photo is straightened, cropped square, and evened out for light — and never touched up beyond that, so what your customer sees is your actual fabric.

You do not have to do them all at once, and you do not have to do them at all. Every photo you add just makes that tile easier to pick.

The My fabrics shelf on the Products page: three photographed fabrics and three from a receipt still showing Add a photo tiles.
The shelf after a receipt drop. The top row has photos; the bottom row is waiting for them.

Or photograph your stash directly

The photo-first path is still the fastest way to get a big stash on the shelf with pictures from day one: photograph everything, then drop all the photos in at once.

  1. 1Lay your fabrics out flat near a window and take one photo of each from straight above. A stash takes a couple of minutes this way.
  2. 2Fill the frame with just the fabric — no table edge, no hands, no ruler. Broidry crops to a square from the middle, so whatever is in the center is what your customer sees.
  3. 3Use daylight if you can. Overhead kitchen light turns everything yellow, and yellow is the one thing a photo cannot fully be corrected back from.
  4. 4On the Products page, under My fabrics, tap Add fabrics and drop them all in — up to 12 at a time; send the rest in a second drop.
  5. 5Each photo comes back straightened, cropped, and with a suggested name and fabric type already filled in. Fix anything it guessed wrong — your word always wins over the suggestion.

Running out, renaming, and removing

When a bolt runs out, tap "Mark out of stock" on its tile. The fabric stays on your shelf with its photo and name, but buyers stop seeing it — and an order that sneaks in from a page someone already had open is refused with a polite "that fabric just ran out." When you restock, tap "Back in stock" — or just drop in the receipt from buying more, which flips it back for you.

Rename a fabric any time by typing in its name box; the name saves when you click away. Change its fabric type with the dropdown under the name. Remove a fabric for good with the × on its corner — its photo goes with it.

Note: The shelf holds up to 60 fabrics. If a receipt would push past that, the extras are skipped and named in the save summary, so nothing disappears silently.