Fabric getting expensive!
 

DH teases me when I pick up fabric at thrift stores saying I have enough already. Yesterday we went into a LQS to buy some thread and I looked at all their samples and fabric. The store was jam packed with samples for all upcoming holidays plus more. They had many small packets of charm squares by Moda laying around so I picked one up and was amazed that they were $8.99 for only 24 pieces of 5" squares. Then I checked the fabric on the bolts and they were $9.99 and up. Yes, the fabric was incredibly beautiful, very bright colors, just exactly what I liked. My thread turned out to be $5.00 each and two years ago it was $3.50. I did not buy any fabric or patterns or outdated magazines ($4.99). DH always tells people that this is an expensive hobby. I came home and could have kissed my stash. Well, I certainly petted it. I recently bought name brand quilting magazines for 12 cents at a thrift store sale and bags of fabric for 1/2 off. Guess I will keep the thrift stores happy after what I saw yesterday.

It definitely isn't a cheap hobby. It seems like the prices are slowly inching up and up. I love my stash!

You're telling me! In my area, there are frequently fabrics that are as much as $22 per meter (which is just a little over a yard). I steer clear of those! I watch for sales, and go to thrift stores. I was lucky enough to buy a bunch of fabric from a lady who was de-stashing, so I occasionally just need a bit of solids to complete a project.

Once my stash winds down, I'm thinking of taking up fabric dyeing. I can get plain white cotton fabric for about $4 per meter, which is way more economical after the initial investment into the dyes. Plus fabric dyeing sound like fun and the results are so beautiful.

Actually $9.99 a yard isn't bad for a quilt shop! It's up to $12 a yard in our area. I shop the clearance sections. Shoot, I've even seen fabric for $14 a yard at JoAnn's! Now that is ridiculous.

However, our predecessors did not waltz into a quilt shop and pick out a selection of coordinated fabrics for their quilts. They scrounged and saved the good parts of their worn out clothes to make their quilts. Many of us are as frugal today.

Yes. I've noticed that every time I go JoAnn's that the price goes up. Today they have a 60% off coupon so go to their web site. Also if you or your spouse is a military vet. or in service now you can get 10% off. I carry a copy of my husbands discharge papers with me and never had a problem with that.

i'm loving my stash for the same reason. the only 'modern' fabrics i have are scraps from the free table at guild meetings

Yes, fabric is getting very expensive. I am soon going to quit making big quilts and concentrate on baby quilts, wall hangings and other small items.

In this area you cannot get a good price for a homemade quilt. People are just not willing to pay for it. I sell at a price that covers the cost of materials so my labor is free. I hate devaluing my work like that but I am on a very strict budget now and want to sell the quilts I have made to help buy materials for other quilts. If I ask a higher price, I won't be able to sell.

There was a time when I could put a higher price on a quilt and wait until the right person came along and was willing to pay the price. These days I need to sell to cover cost of materials.

This is why so many LQS are struggling. Who can afford to regularly pay $12-$15/yard for quilting fabrics? Well, some people obviously can, but not enough to keep a lot of small local shops open.

Yes I agree fabric is getting way too expensive and also batting it was 19.99 a yard at Joann's a while back and I am sure it has not gone down in price. I am taking a break from quilting as I have made a lots of quilts. I am now back into crocheting and it is a LOTS CHEAPER.

Yes, in BC our prices at LQS yesterday for a metre were $20.49 Cdn for the new stock. The fabric I purchased for a backing on a baby quilt was $16.49/metre and as I was admiring the animals on it, the clerk said it was 2015 stock.... but no... no reduction in price. But I had searched at a Fabric discount store earlier and there just wasn't anything to complement the baby quilt, and the fabrics were much thinner. I am thankful for my fabric stash and the front of the quilt all came from it, even the embroidery floss.

I agree. I recently gave away two stacks of quilt magazines. tied the Quilt with Style ones together because they had continued PP patterns in several issues. I just hope some quilter out there buys them some time. They dated back to 2003 and 2005 and 2007. also gave two bags of fat qtrs away. and yes, i still have more. I shop sales if I need some more fabric but am trying hard to use what I have now.

My husband knows that digging around in Thrift Stores pleases me. Since I do most of the driving, he will offer me a meal or his company to hit all the thrift stores in a special area. Sometimes he even spots something he thinks I will like. About 50 miles from here is a town with an abundance of thrift stores. Several days ago we made the trip to have the bottles filled for 4-H air rifles, nothing like that closer to us, and this place fills the bottles without doing any damage to them or the stores equipment. At one of the stores, I picked up a big piece of yardage, then put it back because all I saw was the price of $19.99. I took about one step away, then picked it up again. How could I walk away from 10 yds. of 100 percent cotton, red background with scattered small multi-color stars? It took a few seconds to realize that I could get 10 yds. of this excellent fabric at a cost of $2 per yard. I left there with a shopping cart more than half full of large pieces of desirable fabric, all measured and priced with tags tied on with gift wrap ribbon. For more than a year I have been looking for a fabric that looks like an Easter sunrise. There it was, several yards rolled up and tied with a bow, waiting for me. I had been prepared to pay $5 for a half yard from an Etsy shop online. Sometimes I will pick up items that relate to quilting or sewing and when checking out will be asked "What is that?" Many times I have had sewing machines follow me home, and have even made return trips after I thought about what I had looked at.
Early in our marriage my husband would hide out in the car while I made a trip through a thrift store. It was obvious that he was embarrassed, until the day I pushed and prodded to get him to "just go in". That was the day he found a $90 motorcycle carbuerator still in the original box, for just $9.00. Since that day, he has never looked at St. Vinnies the same.

Rating all these post about fabric and the cost going up I must share my most recent find. Listed on our area yard sale site was "10 bins of fabric $2.00 a yard". I called the phone number that was listed and was able to purchase the I tire lot for less than $1.00 per yard. Lots of lovely fabrics to enhance my stash. Lord knows I would not have been able to afford half the stash at our local quilt shop price of $12.00 +

Elnan, that is a lovely story! I am happy that you were able to find such a bargain, and exactly what you were looking for! It is wonderful when that happens. I love thrift shopping, too, and am glad that my husband and girls enjoy it as well.

"Getting" expensive? I think we passed that hurdle and went straight to "got." I understand that it is mostly due to cotton prices going up exponentially. I balance between LQS and other sales because I do need to support the LQS but I also don't want to break the bank.

I buy lots of my fabric at thrift stores as well and have gotten some really beautiful fabrics there, I guess from quilters who no longer quilt. You just have to be sure to go at least once a week to find them before somebody else does. Ebay can be a great place to find bargain-priced fabric if you find the right seller which is getting harder and harder to do. Thread is absolutely over-priced and it makes me mad to have to pay anything from $5 to $10 a spool for something that won't even finish a large quilt.

So jealous. I wish my husband wanted to go with me to thrift shops.

I agree with you about the expensive prices of fabrics and I think I appreciate my stash more and more. I meet with 6 ladies once a week and if one of us needs something to match their project we always can come thru for her. Quilting is an expensive hobby but it sure is good therapy and relieves alot of stress!!!! So I enjoy it and go digging in my stash quite often.

I have a nice stash and only need to fill in from time to time. I will say that I do most of my shopping online. The prices are much better- Fabric.com, Missouri Star etc.
I know this isn't being supportive of local quilt shops but their prices are ridiculous.
Off to pet my stash! :)

I love thrift stores too! I could never afford quilting if I only bought brand-new fabrics.

$9.99 is a bargain for me. I have almost exclusively been buying batiks for about 4 years now. They are approaching $13.00 and more. I believe that may be related to where you live though. I sometime shop online and do better there.

If you aren't in a guild, maybe try checking with your local guilds to see if they do fabric sales. One of the guilds in my area has an annual sale where members donate fabric they don't want anymore, and it's sold off CHEAP by the pound. It's open to the general public - all the proceeds benefit the guild.

I love that sale, it's always right near my birthday so gives me an excuse to splurge. Not that a splurge costs much there. A lot of the fabric is really nice, too. And sometimes there's great old vintage fabrics up for grabs too. It's a fun event.

There is also a local charity shop that accepts only crafting items - a lot of local elderly folk turn their spouse's stash over to this shop, because all of the proceeds benefit local seniors. Another great place to find deals on fabric, if something like that exists near you.

We've got to be creative to find those deals!

I love thrift shops and so does my hubby. Even when we go traveling, we stop at all we see. I have to say I have never see fabric at any of them....and I have loved fabric and been sewing since I was 11 years old. I have gone to many Goodwills and truthfully, I dont even know what section they would be in .....but I still look, and I have never seen fabric or even scraps. I have bought wool skirts and cotton shirts and cut them up when they were reasonable...but fabric....not yet. So folks, please share what you know.....

Jane Quilter....I was just going to post basically the same thing! There are 4 thrift shops near me, and they never have fabric! Just was at Goodwill also, and they had nothing. There are several LQS's around, and they are pricey! I usually just buy FQs from them. I buy most of my fabric from SR Harris fabric outlet. That is my happy place!!

In CA., quilt store fabrics start at a minimum of $13.99 and up. The fabric store where I've been teaching for 3 years, their quilt shop quality fabrics are $11.99, but she has a lot of cotton fabrics, starting at $4.99, even though it's not "quilt shop quality" fabrics, they are very nice fabrics, UNFORTUNATELY, the owner doesn't have any interest in the store, has decided to close the doors.

I head first to the area where pillowcases end. That is where I find fabric at GW, usually on hangers. GW has gotten too expensive, especially for a thrift store. Recently, I was in several stores owned by Visiting Nurses in Chehalis, WA. Also in same town is a large store in the same lot as Sunbirds. Husband goes to Sunbirds, and later meets me in the thrift store. This thrift store has the sewing stuff on the left side of the store as you go in. More and more they are offering how-to books and patterns. You can either look for thrift stores with an internet search, or get a phone book for the town you are headed for. I have even asked in stores "Do you have an extra or outdated phone book?" In some places a church will open a thrift store. They have good bargains. Your best bet is to do an internet search of the area you expect to stop in.
Value Village in Seattle used to sell clothing by the pound and I have bought items just to get the buttons. If you went in thrift stores and did not find the fabric, you should have asked an employee where to look for the "sewing stuff" Happy hunting!

I bought most of my fabrics a while back so I don't really need much. Although that doesn't mean much. I buy fabrics at Walmart and Hobby Lobby.

our thrift shops rarely have any fabric--even sheets. About all there is are poly curtains. Our guild has an annual sale and I sometimes find something I can't live without (like when I scored a big bag of 5" sq. of juvenile fabric for I Spy quilts!). I've been trying to dip into my stash more and more.

I've also noticed that both my quilting customers and what I'm seeing at shows are smaller quilts--lap and wall hangings. i think that will likely continue as more and more quilters purchase sit-down and mid-arm machines and also start using rulers like Westerlee on their domestic machines.

$9/yd would be a great buy in our area...most of the LQS fabrics are $11 and batiks even more. I have a modest stash but I am trying to use it as often as possible. Here in Maine we have a couple of Marden's stores and I can usually find quality background or backing fabrics for a lot less than LQSs.

I agree with some of the other posters. I have never seen fabric in the thrift stores in this area.

I can sometimes find yardage in thrift stores, but I also look at bed sheets, pillowcases, curtains, etc... Many curtains and specially valances are made with cotton. You just have to spend a bit of time "unsewing" them. (and valances are misleading because they don't look like they have that much fabric, but it's all doubled. Once you take out the stitching, it's surprising how much fabric is there).

Another place I look are linen stores. They sometimes have discontinued bed sheet sets (100% cotton). I've scored king sized sheet sets for $40. There's a lot of yardage in there! (considering my LQS sells cotton sheeting for $10/meter on sale). I just steer away from really high thread counts. These are really nice when you're looking for say, plain white fabric.

When I was it was a teenager it was cheaper to see your own clothes rather than buy ready-made. I don't that's the truth today. Today the patterns alone cost more than I used to spend on everything needed to make a dress back then.

My husband and I go to thrift shops whenever we get a chance. I have found sewing machines, kitchen items and all sorts of things I did not know I needed!!! I have not had much luck with fabric, but I still continue to look. Our 20 year old granddaughter has been shopping at Sal's or Vinnie's for years. She had a knack for picking out tops and jeans that were "in style" for hardly any money! Her parents make an unusually good income, so it was not out of necessity, but the apple of my eye just loves a bargain! Me too!

In my area, Goodwill treats fabric donations as "rags"--just sells them in bulk to a recycler. I occasionally find fabric at smaller thrift stores. Of note: CT sells thread at great prices and it works fine for me. Usually it's just not necessary to have the exact color. Having white, beige, gray, red and black on hand usually covers my needs.

I have given fabric to thrift shops...but have never found any to bring home. Instead I purchase from on line shops such as Missouri Star, fabric.com, sometimes Craftsy, etc. I look for the closeouts or "buy it all" for a cheap price. Only go to Quilt Shops to browse and get idea's. My stash is pretty normal, but always need just one more piece.

Yes they are out pricing themselves in the stores, I have gone more to ordering on the internet from places like Marshalls dry goods. Their fabric can be as low as 1.99 on clearance and start at 3.99 reg.

Today quilting is a 3.76 billion dollar industry. Think about the quilt as a necessity, made from scraps and by hand. Really hard work. Today we have disposable income and are willing to spend thousands of dollars for sewing machines. Not to mention all the other paraphernalia associated with quilting. Prices in LQS are, in my opinion, prohibitive. Sites like $5 Bucks A Yard, etc. keep the cost of fabric in line. As long as there are people willing to spend thousands on "stuff" for quilting, including tens of thousands of dollars for machines, the market thrives, salespeople thrive on commissions and quilts get made.

What are your fav on-line stores?

This has been such an enjoyable thread! Personally, I like garage and estate sales over thrift stores. This morning I was at a garage sale where all the sewing stuff had been given to this young couple by Mom and Grandma. The sellers knew nothing about the 2 Rocketeers and 3 other sewing machines that they were selling. I picked up about 7 yards of new fabric for $2. Most of the pieces still had the Hancock's stickers on them.

I enjoy being frugal with my quilting hobby. It is a great part of the satisfaction that I get from it.