Fabric Café: How It All Began

Creative Sewing Ideas to Feed Your Spirit!

Fabric Café was founded as a result of mother daughter team, Donna Robertson, and Fran Morgan, having a desire to start a business together. They discussed several ideas before Fran, an avid fiber artist, began designing in stacked fabric chenille. She introduced Donna to this method of making chenille and Donna began experimenting with the process, all the while thinking there had to be an easier way. As they discussed the problems and explored solutions, they created a way to take the work and frustration out of making stacked fabric chenille, often referred to as faux chenille.

Fran, and Donna, obtained the assistance of Robert Scacci, an engineer (and Donna's husband), to work out the problems of production and their first product, Chenille By The Inch® was born.

Fabric Café opened its doors in January 2001. Chenille By The Inch® was introduced at A Nimble Thimble, a sewing and quilting shop in Tyler, Texas on March 16, 2001, and received rave reviews from sewing enthusiasts.

Chenille By The Inch® offers fiber artists a super-easy way to get the look and feel of old-fashioned chenille without the work!

In 2008, in an effort to sell three coordinating fabrics, 3-yard quilts were born. Quilters rapidly embraced this easy to follow pattern and asked for more. Soon, 3-yard quilt patterns and books became the top selling items for Fabric Café. By the spring of 2019, Fabric Café offers over 50, 3-yard quilt patterns and six books with 3-yard patterns.

Demand for these easy to follow, quick to complete patterns soon lead to quilt shop demand. Fabric Café 3-yard patterns can now be found in hundreds of quilt and retail shops.