Disclaimer: This post is a LONG post warning. Some of the numbers and figures given were estimates stated to me during the tour. There were no official numbers pulled, so take those with a grain of salt. I was also not compensated for a blog post about my tour, moreover I really just consider myself lucky to have done it. I need to give a shoutout to my friend Pam of Serendipity Woods, who allowed me to be her plus one at the Moda Dinner at Portland Quilt Market where I made the contacts to get this all set up. Click on the photos to see an enlarged version.
Moda Fabrics and Supplies (formerly Moda Fabrics and United Notions) is based out of Dallas, Texas. The company was started by Mark Dunn in 1975. Read more about Mark Dunn on the Moda Blog here. Josh Dunn, Mark's son, gave me the tour around the different warehouses. They have several different warehouses in the same area that they have built through the years. The main warehouse is shoppable for store owners. Google Maps actually tells you the wrong building, but I eventually found my way to the entrance. Here are some photos of the entryway.
They have the sales caps in one room and the top 200 or so notions in a storeroom front for store owners to peruse. They also have beautiful quilts hanging up to display some of the history and some of their awesome collections. One of the things I didn't know, the company started out as a distributor only before a fabric manufacturer. They were still carrying some lines of fabric from other companies at the start of Moda fabrics.
The shoppable warehouse is huge and is laid out like a huge quilt shop!
Some interesting tidbits about the warehouse:
- All of the precuts come from the mill. They do not cut pre-cuts on site.
- The box kits are hand assembled, but the fabric is kitted at the mill. For example, the new color cuts kit includes fabric, some cupcake recipes, a ruler, and instructions. The mill will send over the fabric in kit form, but a person then assembles the boxes and adds all the other items into the box.
- The boxes are printed locally in Dallas.
- There are at any one time 1.5 million yards of fabric in the warehouse to be shopped. Of that, 400,000 yards are discontinued and about 200,000 are on sale.
- All of the Bella solids are made at the same mill, therefore there is no color matching that needs to be made between different mills.
- The warehouse ships out approximately 1000 packages a day.
- The fabric warehouse side turns over about 2.5 to 3 times a year. Meaning that 2.5 to 3 times a year it's a completely new inventory of fabric!
- On the notions side, the inventory is ordered to be the most cost-effective with their vendors. I asked a lot of inventory questions given my background in supply chain. The bottom line always comes down to good forecasting on how many of the items will sell and how fast they can restock their own inventory.
- Moda sells internationally to shops and distributors. But packages go out in waves every 2 weeks!
- For US shops, orders that are placed before 10 am are usually shipped out by 2 pm same day. Mondays get a bit more hectic with all the orders through the weekend.
- There are approximately 130 people that work at Moda.
- The employees are very experienced and have at least 5 years of experience.
- The warehouse is also air-conditioned, which makes it very pleasant inside.
After we walked through the warehouse floor, we entered the south lobby. This space looks almost like a great entertainment area where Moda hosts events.
They have this fabric hanging on the wall to show the different steps of the screen printing process. The colors get added in different layers. There is not a straight line to show the different sections so it blends better as one long continuous piece.
Next, we went up the stairs to the library. This was so cool! This library has a 1/4 yard of every SKU they have ever produced! Not everything is in this library, but a lot of it is. They used to keep a yard of each SKU, but that ended up being a lot. I mean Moda has been a fabric manufacturer for over 25 years!
I didn't get to wander in here very long, but I was able to catch Bonnie and Camille's section! So pretty and so many collections they have made through the years.
The next space we entered is a showroom of sorts for the quilts in the Dunn family's collection. This space was also used for Moda University back a few years ago. They have lots of quilts in their collection, but not all of them get displayed. There are some quilts that are so old they can't be moved since they are literally falling apart.
One of the oldest quilts on display is this Pinwheel Quilt that was completed in 1846! This was the first quilt that had its fabrics reproduced in the Collection for a Cause - Heritage line.
One of the most impressive quilts I've ever seen is the 25 years of Moda Quilt. This was a surprise for Mark Dunn a few years ago. This has swatches of all the collections that Moda produced up to that point, all of the designers for Moda embroidered on the border, and all the collection names embroidered on the back. It's such an amazing quilt to have seen in person!
There was even a quilt made by Josh's grandmother hanging on the wall! The quilt is the one on the left.
Another spectacular quilt is this Pineapple Log Cabin quilt made around the turn of the 20th century. This is another quilt that inspired a Collection for a Cause - Legacy.
They have more recent quilts on display in this room as well. Do you recognize the Moda Frivols quilts? I still have a few of these left that I need to make!
One of the ways that Moda gets designs are through old mill books. These are from the 1800s that have designs that have gone past their copyright and can be reproduced. Here is one of the mill books that were on display. You can see the year labeling each swatch. That is also Josh's hand in the photo as I did not touch a thing! Respect the history.
There is so much history on display, it was fascinating! Here are some old Moda ads that were displayed. They definitely have a modern flair in my opinion!
There were also collages of when this warehouse was built and the first Quilt Market booth that Moda attended. I absolutely enjoyed seeing and hearing the history of Moda.
Next, we headed across the parking lot to one of the other buildings. This houses the sample yardage that gets ordered prior to the ship date of each fabric release and the production warehouse that turns all the rolls of fabric into bolts. Each of the sales samples are cut in-house and assembled by hand.
I did get a sneak peek at some of the upcoming collections that are in the works at the moment, but obviously, no photos were allowed! Moda orders about 1000 yards of a collection to make samples, give fabric to the designers, for sample spree, and for publications. The bulk orders are then made after the initial order based off of forecasting on how well they think the line will sell. All the yardage will come from the mill on large rolls and get turned into bolts on site. There are about 8 people that run the bolting machines and they put 50,000 yards on bolts each day! I didn't get to see the machines running since most people were cleaning up. I can't imagine the amount of lint that is generated!
Whew! That was really long! I hope you guys made it to the end! I ended the tour with a selfie with Josh!
GIVEAWAY!!!
I was also given a Smitten Charm Pack by Bonnie and Camille that I'm sharing with one lucky person! Enter below to win! Open to everyone 18 years and old. The giveaway ends on June 29 at 12 am central.
Movers come on Monday, so not much sewing going on for me this next week. By this time next week, I'll be in Kansas City!
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