Yesterday I talked with a vendor about fabric prices/cotton prices and she said she's hearing that fabric will be going to over $12.50 a yard. At the outlet place I asked again and the woman told me that what they have in the store will not be raised but what comes in after the first of the year may be.

this is quoted from the following website:
http://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/mp_cn206.txt

"...... in the seven designated markets averaged 142.53
cents per pound for the week ended Thursday, November 11, 2010. The weekly average was up from 129.54
cents reported last week and 63.14 cents reported the corresponding period a year ago. Daily average
quotations ranged from a low of 138.84 cents on Friday, November 5 to a high of 147.84 cents on Tuesday,
November 9. This was the highest daily average since records were established in 1917."

You might want to at least skim read the whole article.

Here's another site:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-1...g-may-ebb.html

It sounds at first, that the price "might not be so bad", until you continue reading....

If you don't have a stash, you may want to try to get enough fabric to make two or three quilts to 'keep you busy' during the next year :mrgreen:
I wouldn't think you'd have to go crazy trying to stash enough for the rest of your life, but as I told the vendor at the show yesterday - I won't pay $8.50 for a yard of fabric and I certainly won't pay $12.50"...
I do know that I've seen fabric in Joanns already for $12.99 - and even at 50% off it's too high priced.

It could be they are just manipulating prices, BUT, we live in the deep south and I can tell you that the cotton crop here has not been that good - the weather has been too dry.... factor in the horrendous flooding in Pakistan, etc etc and it doesn't sound promising.

Whether or not the quilting industry - and if you don't think quilting is big business think again - will continue to produce so many yards of so many lines by so many manufacturers remains to be seen.... it could be time for a big shake up and some will fall by the wayside - or collapse all together - if you can't afford to eat you can't afford to buy high priced fabric.
And it may be that the quilters will have to go back to the traditional ways of quilting - making do with what is available rather than using the latest/greatest high priced fabrics available.

Yes, JoAnns has some of their batiks at 12.99 already...the SUPER pretty ones, and YES, I have caved and bought a few.........
I have been trading some stuff for fabric with a lady here, and boy does that help. She has AWESOME taste, so she asks for an item, asks what I'd like, and I say whatever, and she sends the BEST fabric!!!!!!!!!! Maybe more of us could do that, course shipping is high too!

I heard about the raising cotton prices and cringed... if it gets really bad I will use old clothes,ect.. to quilt with lol

Thank goodness I have enough stach to make at lease 50 quilts. But, I usually ahve to buy something to make it POP.

As the daughter of a cotton farmer from the 1950's I can't imagine cotton being being that high. I remember when my dad was ecstatic over 42 cents/pound. However, I am seeing significant price increases in fabric in different stores including Jo-Ann's, Hobby Lobby and Wal-Mart. So ladies treasure your stash.

Thank God for my "fabric collection" aka stash.

At the recent Quilt Festival in Houston the going price for new fabrics was $11.99-$13.00 per yd and was fabric we paid $8.50 for last year.

they had Christmas fabric for that same price today at Joanns! yikees!

i didn't have time to run to hobby lobby..but i will make time monday.
trades are awesome!

I told my DH about it, and he said to go out and get more fabric. So far be it for me not to listen to what he says. LOL

Boy that is one time you do not want to disobey!!! :thumbup:

This just stinks....

What a good wife you are hahaha :mrgreen:

I already do this...works for me.

When I am hand sewing, I usually put something on the TV that I won't watch much of. A week or so, I put on QVC. They had a designer, Stan Herman, on the show. He was talking about 100% cotton and the prices going up. He said that by next year, cotton would be as valuable as gold bars and would be quite expensive to buy 100% cotton. I dread to see just how high it will go.

We may have to start quilting with polyester!

This could be really bad for those of us who live in Canada, because our fabric in a lot of places is already at $20.00 plus in a lot of the local quilt shops. Could be a whole lot more come the beginning of the year.

Just did a shop hop yesterday. Highest I saw in the LQS was 10.49/yd. Didn't buy any that price. Yes, crazy as that is, buying FQ's at 2.75 is equal to 11.00 a yard, and that's what I bought the most of. More for the variety I guess.

Well, amazingly enough, they actually mentioned the cotton prices on the evening news (CBS) - said it is up 400% and that some dealers are now hoarding cotton bales..

copied from CBS evening news:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/...n7054556.shtml

"Last spring bad weather in India, Pakistan and China destroyed cotton fields, slashing the global supply while demand is higher than ever. The growing middle class in those countries is spending its new-found wealth on western-style cotton clothes.

Rich Delano works in China, where investors are ignoring stocks and buying bales.

"What they're doing is they're buying actually containers of cotton yarn and holding it, sitting on it," he says.

That ups the prices, which are just now trickling down the supply chain.

The cotton costs more, so the pockets cost more, which means all-cotton jeans are going cost you more. Higher prices are a tough sell in this economy, so manufacturers are cutting where they can, using synthetic blends, lowering labor costs and searching for long-term alternatives, including from an unlikely source: Bamboo. It looks like cotton, feels like cotton and at this point is cheaper than cotton. Delano says inquiries for his bamboo fabric are up almost 50 percent.

"More manufacturers and more brands, more designers are looking for alternative fibers, alternative fabrics," says Delano. "

Gas is going up just as fast again too...lets see gas, chocolate, cotton, whats next??

that is nuts but alot can change in a years time

And the trickle effect. I like to buy cotton shirts and blouses and slacks for myslef. Just think what this will do to my clothing budget. And kids' and men's cotton jeans etc will skyrocket too. Not to mention socks and undies. Wow.