> We went to a scooter meet banquet about a year ago and my wife talked to someone about "themed fabric." She tells me that it is print fabric with a theme. In this case, there was a guy wearing a shirt with little Cushman motor scooters printed in a pattern all over it. Other "themes" are Ford Mustangs, NASCAR, and probably a lot of other stuff.
>
> The mill where these fabrics are made is reportedly in North Carolina, but I can't seem to find any specific location. Has anybody ever heard of this? Any information will be appreciated.
>
> I am hoping for a unique Cushman shirt. Maybe a bathrobe.
>
> This is one of those things that triggers the imagination bubble in my twisted mind. Just think of the possible themes for themed fabric!
>
> How about a nerd theme with little monitors, floppies, CD's, and mice? Or a garden theme with onions, potatos, tomatoes and peppers. I saw a fishing shirt recently with various lures pictured all over it. And maybe a garage sale shirt with little green signs, plastic junk, green fruit jars, broken toys, and ladder-back chairs. I'd like a themed fabric with Toyotas on it, so why not one with Jeeps or Crosleys? Motorcycles would be popular. And for coin collectors, a fabric with coins all over the place. How about a hubcap theme showing vintage hub caps from Packard, Nash, Kaiser, Studebaker and other extinct brands?
>
> Who knows, that place somewhere in North Carolina may already have most of those.
> Howard

You need to head over to your local fabric store, most will have anywhere from 100 to 500 bolts of "novelty" fabric. There are many mills that manufacture fabrics like that, although I don't know specific places. Many are manufactured over-seas.

The Nascar, Ford, John Deere, Hello Kitty and Cushman variety fall under the "licensed" category. The mills buy a license to manufacture fabric with corporate approved prints. Some corporations have very high quality control standards, and are very selective in who they allow ot manufacture merchandise with their name on it. Other's aren't so picky, so you'll see a big difference in quality depending on where you shop. Sometimes you can find a print in Wal-mart, and the same at another store. Usually there is a significant price differance, usually 2-8 dollars a yard. Most the time, you can tell a difference in the fabric and print quality.

You may have trouble finding Cushman themed fabric, you don't know if it's a regular thing that the mills produce, or if it was for a limited run. A lot of textiles manufacturers only deal with wholesalers, so you may have trouble getting any information at all. My recommendation is to look up on the net "Cushman Motor Scooters Novelty Fabrics" and any variation's you can think of. I did a brief search, but apparently Cushman is the last name of a textiles designer, so it was a bust. I don't know if this person exists, but you may want to contact the person in charge of the licensing division of Cushman. They would be able to tell you if the fabric even exists, or how much it would cost you to contact a smaller mill and have some fabric run up for yourself and friends :)

On a different note, when I worked at a fabric store in high school Disney corporation did not release it's license very often. If we received fabric from our warehouse with any Disney Character on it, it was to be destroyed as it was an illegal copy. I remember finding that very exciting at the time. The fabric business has undergone a lot of changes in the past decade, especially in the last 5 years. Inventory management (on the large corporate fabric store level) was poor at best, but now it's pretty streamlined in comparison. I'm not expert on this subject, it's just observations that I've made from working in the industry of and on during the past 5 years and talking to people that have worked in the business much longer.

Hope this helps, or atleast gives you some ideas on where to start your search!

Tess