I buy my PFD (prepared for dyeing) cotton from a local wholesaler, I am probably their most boring customer as its the ONLY item I order from them....plain white! But lots of it!
But I find my other fabrics in a variety of other places.! When I was in Florence last fall I found a flea market and bought three yards of the most luscious linen that you can imagine! The shop had a huge roll of it, I should have bought more but had run out of cash...... I want to make something extra special with that fabric, I just havent figured out what!
I often find wonderful linen napkins and tablecloths at thrift stores. It doesnt matter to me if they are a little worn and usually the damask pattern shows up beautifully once they are dyed. I did find a whole set of linen placemats stamped with an embroidery pattern (but never worked) and they took dye and paint so nicely.
A student of mine found a wonderful linen in the drapery department of a discount fabric store and it was wonderful when dyed. And there are often interesting remnants in a very chique home decor store here in town.
I often order some silk and blends from a dye supplier in the US, the price is reasonable and sometimes there's good rates on shipping.
Threads are somethimes a little trickier to find. I used to buy crochet cotton at the thrift stores but I found once it was dyed, tiny fibres tended to to slough off of the threads. Although tatting thread is usually a better quality, but I generally don't work that fine!
Last week I found skeins of a cotton and linen blend of knitting yarn that will be beautiful when its dyed and also a skein of rayon and cotton chenille yarn that I know will be simply gorgeous! I'm looking into ordering larger quantities of skeined threads (its a lot of work putting the threads into skeins for dyeing) and always on the lookout for other supplies of both threads and fabrics.
Where do you like to shop for your supplies??
