•  Do I need to create an account? What does creating an account do?
•  Where do you get your fabric from?
•  What kind of sewing machine do you recommend?
•  What is a "Basic sewing kit"?
•  How do I remove an item from my shopping cart?
•  How long do items stay in my cart? I had some fabric in my cart but now it's gone, why?
•  Is my credit card information secure through this site?
•  Can I view my previous orders placed on this site?
•  Where can I find a page or Class I know was here?
•  Where is the fabric that I saw before?
•  What happened to your blog pages.
•  What is that keyword 'z' all about?

 • Do I need to create an account? What does creating an account do?

- You do not need to create an account to use our site. However, an account will be created automatically if you decide to make a purchase, or if you sign up for one of our classes.

This allows us to view your contact information, and store your shipping address(es). It allows you to, view your order history and details, and view tracking details for any product that you have had shipped.

We do not store credit card information, and we do not sign you up for any email or advertising lists. We only use the information collected to contact a customer if there is an issue with their product order or class. We do not share this information with any outside person or company, unless required by a governmental or law enforcement agency.

- With an account on our site, in addition to being able to view your order history, you are able to simplify and enhance your experience on the site. While shopping as a logged in user, the items you select will appear in a list in the shopping cart block on the left side of the page. You will also be able to add and remove items directly from here, without having to click back and forth between the cart and product pages. During checkout, entering in your user id or email will automatically attach the order to your account, and you can choose any stored address(es) during to checkout. Having an account also enables us to issue discount coupons to individual customers, such as referral discounts or other similar rewards and incentives.

Future plans are to possibly include customer reviews, a gallery of student projects or items made with our product or during a class, a product & classes forum, download-able content such class materials and instructions or patterns, contests and/or giveaways, and possibly video tutorials and tips. Any such additions to our site would be completely optional, however they would require having an account to access or participate in them. †back to top

 • Where do you get your fabric from?

- We specialize in independent fabric designers and harder to find small companies – mostly we get our fabrics right from the designers! Some of our fabrics are even organic and / or made with renewable fibers like bamboo. †back to top

 • What kind of sewing machine do you recommend?

- We recommend several different brands of sewing machines depending on what kind of sewing you’ll be doing. First of all, if possible, you want to save your money a little and get the best machine you can afford. Cheap machines (generally under $250 or so) will take a lot of the fun out of sewing when they start to break down, jam up and ruin your fabric. A few top of the line brands are Pfaff and Bernina. Viking and Janome are also very good brands – we carry Janome sewing machines at the Sew L.A. retail store. If you have less than $200 to spend on a machine, you’re best off with a basic mechanical Kenmore – out of all the lower end brands it is the most reliable.

We advise people not to purchase a computerized machine unless it is one of the previously mentioned better brands.

We love vintage machines, but you do have to know a bit about machines and sewing before you pick one up off of Craigslist! †back to top

 • What is a "Basic sewing kit"?

 - You will see this listed under the supply list for most of the classes offered at Sew L.A. We suggest that a "Basic Sewing Kit" include the following items:

fabric shears (nice sharp ones)
small scissors for snipping thread
glass-headed pins (to iron over if necessary) and cushion (tomato or magnetic)
seam ripper (a smaller blade is better for garment sewing)
tape measure (fiberglass – doesn’t stretch!)
tailor’s chalk (in a color that you can see on your fabric)
2” wide clear ruler (way better than the wooden or metal kind for marking hems)

If you are using our machines for a class or during some Sewlab time, you will also need a green plastic bobbin and machine needles.

(All of these supplies are available at Sew LA) †back to top

 • How do I remove an item from my shopping cart?

- When you're on the shopping cart page, to the left of the small item thumbnail there's a small check box under the heading Remove. Click in the box, and then click the 'Update cart' button to remove the selected items from your cart. If you are already in the checkout pages you'll need to click either the 'cancel' button (in step 1), or the 'back' button if you've made it to the order review page (step 2). †back to top

 • How long do items stay in my cart? I had some fabric in my cart but now it's gone, why?

- It depends on how the site views you while you're shopping. In order to keep system resources available to other customers, the site only keeps items in a cart for a short time. For an anonymous user (or a user who isn't logged in) the default amount of time a cart will hold it's contents is 30 minutes after the last user action. For existing users who are logged in, the default time is 2 hours of inactivity. Your cart won't empty itself while you are using it, only after the last activity according to your user status.

As items added to a cart are not actually taken out of the available inventory until an order has been completed, you cannot hold items for an extended period of time to guarantee a later purchase. Items added to your cart may also become unavailable if some one else purchases the last available quantity before you continue through the checkout. While this is actually very uncommon under normal circumstances, it does occasionally occur if there is a sudden run on a particular item.

For very special circumstances we may decide to place a hold on a particular item or quantity for a later purchase, though this is done solely at our discretion and for a strictly limited window of time. †back to top

 • Is my credit card information secure through this site?

- We use high-level SSL encryption (AES-256 128bit)  for all orders placed through our shopping cart, and all transactions are processed through Authorize.net's credit card gateway servers. We do not process or store your credit card information on our servers. We do list the last 4 digits, type of card and expiration date on the completed orders only as a reference should we need to issue a refund to a customer. Refunds are processed through the Authorize.net servers as well, where we do not have access to your full credit card information either. We also use encryption on all user account and login pages, and all administrative pages to prevent any unauthorized access to user and customer information beyond the shopping cart pages. †back to top

• Can I view my previous orders placed on this site?

- The quickest way is to just log in to the site, and you'll see the 'Click here to view your order history' link under the word Orders. If you've logged in already and are somewhere else on the site, your order history is located on the 'Orders' tab in your account pages. Either click 'My Account' on the left side of the page under your Username, or click your username at the top of the page next to where it says 'You are logged in as ...' The 'Orders' tab will list all your order #'s, the date, status and total amount charged. Click an order # to view the details of your purchase and a link to a printable invoice for your records. If you don't see an order that you think should be listed, please contact us, but the most likely reason would be that your order was not successfully processed or payment was declined and subsequently canceled. If an order's status is processing then we have yet to ship your order. It will be marked completed once it has shipped and you will be able to see the attached tracking number as well as any necessary information or messages regarding the order. †back to top

• Where can I find a page or Class I know was here?

- If you had bookmarked a Class in the past, or if you are following a link to a Class listing that has already started and/or possibly has finished, be advised that we remove past classes from their original location so as to keep the menus up to date with available classes and not full of 'out of stock' listings. You can try the "search box" to search for Classes with the same name to see any available or upcoming Classes.

- If you are looking for details of a class you have taken previously, you can get some basic information by checking the order history tab on your account page. You can then search for an upcoming class with the same number to see the class description, materials and supply list & requirements and prerequisites. Please also see the next topic below. †back to top

• Where is the fabric that I saw before?

- We move all the 'out of stock fabric' out of the original catalog listings so as to keep the relevant catalog pages full of items that our customers can actually purchase. As a temporary location, we move fabric to the 'z' keyword listing in case someone is looking for an item that is now unavailable. Some fabric that we sell is re-orderable and as such we do not immediately delete these items. If we do receive more quantity of a sold out fabric this allows us to get it back into the regular catalog pages as quickly as possible. †back to top

• What happened to your blog pages.

- We decided that the blogs would be a bit more flexible in terms of what they could offer, if we took them out of the actual shopping cart and catalog pages. With the amount of traffic that the site sometimes experiences, we felt that it was an unnecessary strain on the server to be providing the blog functions as well. The blog pages have been relocated to this address www.sew-la-fabric.blogspot.com and will enable us to expand their potential. †back to top

• What is that keyword 'z' all about?

- 'Z' stands for zip (at least in my dictionary), and thus these are fabrics that are currently out of stock. Sometimes we are able to re-order fabric that has currently sold out. We temporarily move the out-of-stock fabrics here so that if we are able to re-order them, it's just a few clicks to get it back into the regular catalog. If someone has bookmarked this fabric for a future purchase they will see that it's been sold out, and won't waste a lot of time looking to see if it moved somewhere else. If we deleted the fabric as soon as it goes out of stock, it disappears from the site completely. It's also nice just to keep some pictures of old friends around for a bit. †back to top