Originally Posted by sewbizgirl
Funny, I was in a Walmart after church today and three of us customers had to wait about 10-15 minutes after having someone paged, before they showed up to cut fabric. We just kept shopping while we waited, or else I would have lost patience and left. I looked at a lot of their fabric, esp. the better stuff like the Cranston VIP brand, and it was all made in Pakistan, even the Cranston! The closest to domestic I found was some that was marked, "printed in the USA." Big deal. They bought foreign cotton and printed it here. What has happened to all the huge fabric mills in places like Rhode Island? Textile mills were the mainstay in many New England states while I was growing up. I hate that we are importing it all now. It's not really any cheaper, either. Think of the thousands of people those mills employed.
I think Cranston VIP was the last one made in America. They closed their mill a couple years ago.
Now most of our cotton is American grown but manufactured elsewhere. Cotton crops were seriously damaged this spring. More than 50% of American cotton comes from Texas, and the drought there has taken its toll on the crops. Many have been completely destroyed.
It's such a shame for the cotton farmers too. It's about 6 months from field to fabric shop. We'll see the result in price hikes next winter.