Prices on fabric have steadily been going up for a long time. But somethings have lways been high. Approx 22 years ago I planned to make my husband nice dress pants- when I factored out the fabric, zipper, etc the cost at even that time was approx 80- that did not include the painstaking frustration of making them. Sewing in some respects has become a 'only those who can afford hobby' My mother talked of shoping for dress fabric at the grain mill. Chicken feed sacks were made of exactly one yard of fabric. The bags were in a variety of fabrics- Each dress required 3 yards so the next girl out of 5 who needed one got to pick the sacks- the guys working the grainery would have to move stacks and stacks of bags for ladies shopping this way to get the number of bags in a certain fabric.