Originally Posted by butterflywing
... they started making fabric out-of-country for lower prices, but never lowered the prices here...
I'd dearly love to know if the manufacturers ever ASKED the quilters / quilt shop owners (and I don't mean chain store buyers) what they would like. As in... many of the fabrics are a lot thinner than they used to be. Once upon a time I asked the folks at Cranston how much more it would cost, at the wholesale price level, to print their designs on, say, a beefy 60x60 rather than the thinner greige goods that the chain stores demanded. And the answer was about a dime. Shoot. Even if that raised the retail prices by 25 cents / yard, it would have been worth it, if they'd asked me.
My suspicion is that this was driven, either by us consumers always looking for the "deal", not thinking of the long-term cost... or by the chain store buyers, looking out for their bottom line no matter what (maybe to please their shareholders)?
And I worry about what it all means, for my kids. (A college degree is great, but you can't outsource the plumber and the auto mechanic.)
Hmmmm...