Originally Posted by phoenixquilter
Hi, and have you noticed over the last few years that the fabric is getting smaller? I was looking over some older quilt magazines and they called for 44/45 inch wide fabric. Now you are lucky to get 40 inches of usable fabric per yard!
I agree, this is definitely disappointing... but if you do the math, you can easily see that if the manufacturer makes the fabric one inch less wide, it will call for 2% less raw materials. You can see why they'd find that calculation rather appealing!
Being "in the business" I can tell you that the wholesale cost for fabric, from the various makers, has risen 20 - 25 cents / yard over the last year (and it rose about the same amount the year before that). Add on top of that the increased freight costs (UPS and Fedex raise their rates every year) and you can see why retail prices have risen also.