I am looking at my soon to be 80thBD so I remember the Depression, no jobs, no money, doing WITHOUT, breadlines, homemade everything if you were fortunate to have the basics. This is what we are being promised now.
All I can say is stock up your fabrics, your groceries if you can, prices will increase, stores will close and jobs will be fewer. Unemployment will affect everyone somehow. My FIL supported his entire family, parents, siblings and his own immediate family. He was the only one with a job and it was with the railroad making $200 a month.
When I closed my fabrics stores a few years back my husband insisted I save too much fabrics. Since then I've had a couple of sales for a $1 yd for at the time I purchased was high price fabric. I still have more pieces than the fabric shops. Watching our sad economy I intend to enjoy what I have left. While I would love to have newly designed fabrics I just buy a fat quarter or two and be thankful I have on hand what I do. So sorry to rain on your coffee this AM but it has been raining very hard here and all night long, yeh, yeh, yeh, we need it.

Have a thought for struggling shop owners. The upturn in prices means a downturn in trade. With overhead and investment in inventory they are not going to be able to make ends meet. Prepare to watch them go out of business. And won't we MISS them? Walmart and online retailers will not and cannot replace the quality, service and fellowship of the LQS.

Fewer folks (of necessity) buying retail fabric will mean demand will go down and lower demand will mean a reduction of production. Will we return to 1960 when the palette of goods for quilting was limited to clothing and light decorator fabrics produced for home sewers? :-( :-( :-( :-(

Wow, when did they change that? Or is it regional policy? I recently used 2 coupons-a 40% off for some cut fabric and another 20% off total purchase. I was a smidgen perturbed that the 20% off didn't cover the piece of fabric because I had already used a coupon on that fabric- :shock: oh, is that what they mean?

Actually the price of cotton has gone up because it is a commodity! There are less cotton fields in the US today, and less all around the world. The cheap labor used to pick cotton went many years ago, now it is machines and big industry. They are the ones controling the prices. My husband watches the stock market closely and told me this would happen. Now it has!
I was in a quilt shop the other day and they told me to take advantage of buying NOW while the prices were still low in that shop. They told me by the end of August they would be jumping the price, because that is what they now have to pay for the fabric.

Last night I needed some floral fabric for a quilt. I shopped on line at Hancock of Paducah........because thay had what I wanted. All new fabric is $5.49 a HALF yard!
Fabric here in the North East US stores is now about $12.00 a yard, and may go higher soon, because of what has happened in the stock market in the past few days.

I'm not getting rid of ANY of my stash.....I may have to work on using it for the rest of my life! NO JOKE!

I grieve to see my online friends being so affected with the higher prices fabrics. You know everything is affected, gas, food, clothes, higher utilities. Takes electricity to run our fancy machines, you might need a treadle. Be happy with what you have now. I know how to live without but I look around at you younger ones who has not had this experience and I feel so sorry for you. My best advice is get rid of your credit cards, buy only what you need, don't put all your cash in the banks, stock up some food and ammo, do not tell. If it gets as bad as predicted, those who do not have will try to take it from you. For the first time in my life I dispise policitians and what they have done to out wonderful country, now a laughing stock of world. Sorry if I'm depressing but I want you people realize how much you still have and enjoy today, yesterday is gone and tomorrow is yet to come. Still raining in Ark.

This is how I feel as well. Now, there are some "bad eggs" out there in terms of LQSs. I'm thinking of the one someone posted about where she signed up for a class and they changed the class requirements on her and said they would be "required" to have their quilts quilted by a specific person, and "required" to do other things for additional cost, and then fussed when the person asked for her money back because it wasn't the original class! Some people should not be in business.

BUT. There are others who have done well by us and do everything they possibly can for us. It's not their fault things are rough. I like getting a deal as well as the next person, but I also want them to stay in business. A local sewing shop (not quilting, but he sold machines and had classes, etc) recently went out of business. How many more will go?

Look at what is happening all over Europe, and London is the past 3 nights! Now even Philadelphia was in the midst of riots the last few days. If polititians insist on taking the social safety net away from the poor and middle class in America.....the riots will follow everywhere. I feel very bad for our country right now.
This is a very bad time for America. It is going to become a country of the ultra rich and the ultra poor!

That must be the store manager's decision.


Purchasing power. Wholesalers rank their accounts. Premium accounts get better prices than net accounts. The head buyer orders from the manufacturer and the store orders from the head buyer. If the store tried to order from the manufacturer the price would be higher.
For example 100,000 @ $1.00 vs 100 @ $1.50

Your Walmart still has a fabric Dept? None of ours do they use to, put alot of little quilt shops & even a few chain stores out of business & once that happened they got rid of thier fabric depts here. I bought some novelty prints there but most of what I buy is from the little local quilt shops its 100% cotton, not blends. You can tell the difference just buy the feel! I also order alot online.

Our JoAnn's only allows 1/ 40% off coupon per transaction & yes they will allow you to use 1/ 20% off your total, excluding any sale items or already discounted 40% off item. If you want a second item @ 40% off you need to go back another day! It's a bummer especially since I have to travel 35 mins to get there its not just around the corner! Oh well I can just as easily sit on my nice comfy sofa with my lap top an order online!

I do have to add that if I shop JoAnns.com I can make 100 transactions everyday and use a 40% off coupon, a 20% off total and use discounted or free shipping codes! But the store tells me NO! ROFL

I have a really hard time paying that much for fabric. I do a lot of shopping online. I just don't seem to have the time to go shopping any more. I only go to the LQS when I have to match something. There are several really good online fabric stores.

Piecework Fabrics is having a really good sale. $5.95/yard. It is all brand name quilting cotton. I have bought from them several times and always good service.

http://www.pieceworkcompany.com/

Check them out.