I apologize if this post is unnecessarily long however, certainly lets us know what we have to look forward to.
In the past 6-9 months now, purchasing fabrics for my quilting has and is becoming more and more disappointing and frustrating.
I've noticed the quality is not the same (or better) as 2-3 years ago but it definitely IS costing me more.
I believe declining thickness/weight/quality of quilting fabrics we are seeing now has a direct link to Textile Price Increases.
Here in Canada, we have a LQS called "Fabricland" which carries pretty well every conceivable type of fabric you could want - at generally very reasonable prices.
I received my monthly newsletter in the mail yesterday and they had an interesting (but unfortunately sad) report on their back page which was:
To Our Valued Members: An Important Message on Textile Price Increases
Hit by soaring raw material costs and rising wages, textile prices are poised to rise dramatically. This will affect the areas of textiles, bath and bedding and ready-to-wear apparel alike.
The main cause is a massive hike in the price of raw cotton. According to Textiles Intelligence Limited, in the 18 months between March 2009 and the end of September 2010 the price ofraw cotton rose by 127%, from 51 cents/lb to 116cents/lb. An a rise in the price of raw cotton directly affects synthetics also. Increased demand for alternate fires, along with rising oil prices, have boosted the cost of polyester. According to USA Today, the average price of polyester staple fibre in China raw by over 30% between January and mid-October of 2010. These hard facts have put us in the difficult position of having to raise prices on cotton and polyester fabrics. Some modest increases went in to effect January 17th. We will keep increases to a minimum when and where possible while monitoring the evolving Asian markets. For those interested, they provided this link:
http://www.warmcompany.com/CottonInc.pdf
In researching this and other sites related to rising cotton prices many articles indicate specific, designated raw cotton crops in the USA, India and China are already "SOLD OUT" for the next two years therefore, retail cotton prices ARE and WILL CONTINUE to increase.
This in turn, I am assuming, is likely the reason why the quality of our quilting fabric is diminishing - lower thread count means thinner fabric.
:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: