Has Anyone Done Business with Big Z Fabrics?

[D'Snowth]

I found a site that carries Mongolian sheepskin fur - which is always so hard to come by - called Big Z Fabrics. Has anybody here ever done business with them, or can comment on the quality of their fabric? Their prices seem just slightly cheaper than fabric.com, but considering they're in Los Angeles, I'll bet shipping and handling would be astronomical.

 

[JammieJam]

I ordered a few yards of fabric from them about a month ago. I was really pleased with the quality of the stuff I ordered, and I got a few samples of their Mongolian faux fur and it seemed pretty well put together. It was decently thick and I couldn't see the backing through it. I do not have a lot of experience with that kind of fur, though, so I can't really give a comparison. The shipping WAS pretty high, 15.88 to ship to North Carolina. I remember at the time I thought that I might try fabric.com next time because of the shipping cost.

 

[D'Snowth]

Decently thick, so is the fabric itself heavyweight then? Because I've used fabric.com's luxury shag as a substitute for Mongolian, and it's terrible: the shag fabric is really thick and heavyweight, which results in some rather stiff, heavy, and cumbersome puppets. I didn't have that problem with Mongolian in the past, but then again, I got that fabric from a cheap, dollar store throw pillow, rather than by the yard in a fabric store.

 

[JammieJam]

You know, I'm at work right now and I don't remember the weight of the backing fabric. When I get home, I'll take a few pictures and upload them for you to see.

 

[D'Snowth]

You don't have to do that, considering just looking at the fabric itself doesn't give me an idea. I mean the handling/feel of the fabric - does the fabric feel like it has some weight to it? That's what I meant when I was asking it theirs was a heavyweight fabric or not; as I said, I've ordered luxury shag from fabric.com in lieu of Mongolian, and the comparison is really obvious at how stiff and heavy the shag fabric is compared to the lightweight Mongolian I've used before.

I don't know if a difference shows or not, but here's a comparison of the older Steve D'Monster puppet I built using Mongolian fur from a throw pillow, and the more recent rebuild with the luxury shag from fabric.com:

I'm not sure if it really shows much, but the first Steve was really light, flexible, and could move more freely; the newer Steve is really heavy, cumbersome, and stiff, which really limits my freedom of manipulation when performing him (in fact, I actually defaulted to the older puppet for a music video back in October because he wasn't going to be used that much anyway, and I wanted to make it as much of a breeze as possible).

So, like I said, I'm curious about the weight of the fabric in terms of hand and feel of it.

 

[JammieJam]

I had to wait til I got home to take a look at the backing. I'd call it medium weight; its sturdy but flexible, and it folds and twists easily. I think you could make a pretty expressive puppet with it. Here are some quick pictures I took: