Fabric prices
#81
Junior Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Manitoba
Posts: 281
I am on a very limited budget, and its been even tighter this last year. So I cannot afford the LQS's $12.00 per yd. I only shop JoAnn's when I have a sale flyer. I do most of my shopping right here on the boards. The members here are constantly selling beautiful fabric and so I read the boards and then go peek to see what is new on sale.
Thanks
#83
Super Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Tampa Bay Area, Florida
Posts: 2,229
I don't usually fall for a "line" of fabric, sort of do my own thing, but I found a Snoopy Army print (for Quilts of Valor) and really fell for it. Bought 5/8 yard pieces of 5 prints, 4yds for back and a 2 1/4yd piece for binding a border. $136!! I was floored. I know it is for a great cause, but I am on a limited budget and let my heart get ahead of my budget-minded head! I got it, and I will sew it up, and I will love it, but I might be eating bean for the next month! lol
I think it was 12.99 yd, and I don't usually do that!
I think it was 12.99 yd, and I don't usually do that!
#84
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 559
When I was at a Walmart store in NoLRock, I found fabric at $2.00/yd, it was fair quality but the two other prints I found were $.86/yd and much nicer quality. Dumb me, I just bought 2 yds of one and one yard of the other at 86 cents. Oh well, maybe I'll go back. I'm 79 yrs old and will never use up all my fabric! Can't resist a bargain. I am donating fabric and helping make charity quilts but concerned my health (arthritis) will allow me many more years of sewing.
#85
Member
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Posts: 23
Fabric prices
When I was at a Walmart store in NoLRock, I found fabric at $2.00/yd, it was fair quality but the two other prints I found were $.86/yd and much nicer quality. Dumb me, I just bought 2 yds of one and one yard of the other at 86 cents. Oh well, maybe I'll go back. I'm 79 yrs old and will never use up all my fabric! Can't resist a bargain. I am donating fabric and helping make charity quilts but concerned my health (arthritis) will allow me many more years of sewing.
Be blessed, as in Australia we pay for good quality fabric, anything from $20 to $30 per metre if lucky we can get it half price on sale or less40%
#87
Some of the LQS are charging $14 a yard, I choose not to spend that much. I will order from web sites that are much cheaper.. connecting threads has good fabric lots cheaper.. Marshall's Dry Goods in Batesville AR is way cheaper... I know there are still some folks that will pay that, but not me.
#88
Super Member
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Heart of Colorado's majestic mountains!
Posts: 6,026
I have a 'game' I play. I plan my grocery shopping carefully and use the store coupons, online sites to sign up such as just4you specials at Safeway. Kroger stores also have this service. I only buy basic foods we use, (around the outside of the store) never mixes, boxed or frozen dinners, etc. I cook everything from scratch. I stock up on special items when on sale. My reward? I count the money saved as my quilting kitty. Had I shopped differently I would have spent lots more money in the grocery store. I keep an accounting record of my 'savings' and my quilting expenditures. Last year I broke even. There is only so much income and only so much of the costs of living is under my control. I want to quilt so I need to carve out the cost some way. As mentioned before other hobbies and activities are also expensive.
#89
Senior Member
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Washington
Posts: 855
Fabric prices seem to be keeping up with inflation. Unfortunately wages are not, so our real costs of buying are exceeding inflation. I never pay full price for anything. I refuse to buy $12-14/yard fabric. Whether or not that price is justifiable, it's not worth it to me. The fabric manufacturers want to stay in business so pricing pressures will cause them to lower their prices. They are, IMHO, where the problem lies. They take orders ahead of time and for the most part, only order what they've presold. The quilt shops have to double the wholesale because they may or may not sell everything they order.
I thankfully have a ridiculously large stash, but it gets 'stale' to me sometimes so I have to have a few new things once in awhile. I allow myself one yard of local fabric, under $10 a month. That's it, and I often don't buy anything! I can also buy online and meet minimums for shipping, but only if I get things I love. I can't just buy something because it's cheap.
I also have taken to hand dying, both because of the price and because I can't seem to get what I want from fabric stores. Everything seems to be either "modern," novelty, or batik. Where are the good, soft, tone on tones? Batiks are like my hand dyes, but I don't like to quilt the greige they're printed on. I can use soft Kona cottons for my own dyes.
What kills me is the price people are willing to pay for THREAD. ($25 for a 2000 yard spool of cotton?) This is something new since I stopped quilting in 1999. I know someone wrote an article justifying it, but they used full retail, rather than the discounted prices people typically pay at places like Joann's when they did their comparison.
I thankfully have a ridiculously large stash, but it gets 'stale' to me sometimes so I have to have a few new things once in awhile. I allow myself one yard of local fabric, under $10 a month. That's it, and I often don't buy anything! I can also buy online and meet minimums for shipping, but only if I get things I love. I can't just buy something because it's cheap.
I also have taken to hand dying, both because of the price and because I can't seem to get what I want from fabric stores. Everything seems to be either "modern," novelty, or batik. Where are the good, soft, tone on tones? Batiks are like my hand dyes, but I don't like to quilt the greige they're printed on. I can use soft Kona cottons for my own dyes.
What kills me is the price people are willing to pay for THREAD. ($25 for a 2000 yard spool of cotton?) This is something new since I stopped quilting in 1999. I know someone wrote an article justifying it, but they used full retail, rather than the discounted prices people typically pay at places like Joann's when they did their comparison.
#90
Junior Member
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 110
It was not only labor costs that ran the manufacturing overseas. The process of making fabrics and especially dyeing fabrics is highly caustic with the chemicals that are used. Our OSHA requirements made the manufacturing process very very expensive. But it is true that the overseas wages are so disgustingly low, I'm sure the raise in prices to us do not hit the pocketbooks of the people doing the labor! Not sure this problem will ever be corrected!!
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