The quilting industry today as compared to the mid 80's-early 90's
Are there some statistics anywhere telling us the state of the quilting industry today (in the US) compared to then?
I'm not as interested in millions/billions? of dollars, because of inflation, but it would be interesting to compare yardage sold in say, 1986 and 2010, or any other relevant types of information such as an estimated number of quilters in the US. Saying it was a $5 billion dollar industry then and a $35 billion (just making up those numbers) now isn't really what I'm looking for due to inflation.
But I'd love info on things like the big quilt shows--Attendance, numbers of vendors, etc. Is attendance up? Are there more vendors, etc.
I know when I was much younger, there was a LQS in our home town in FL. I hardly ever went in there. They closed down. For a while there was no LQS, just Walmart. Then Walmart closed out their fabrics and now there is a LQS again.