Fabric is certainly high enough here in Columbus, GA!! I needed one yard for binding a large quilt and I needed it yesterday because the quilt was being delivered on Wednesday. So off to the LQS I go, rather than JoAnns or Hancocks because I wanted a good quality. I picked by color and didn't check the price. I had just gotten some at the same shop a short while ago. Came to more than $12 with tax. What a shock.

I was telling my son about that experience and how that would affect future quilts. His answer was "You are just going to have to pass the cost on." That sounds logical, but people's incomes are going down, not up. It was his final remark that got me though. He told me "We just look at them as something to put on the bed, not something to cherish." What? I spend hundreds of dollars on each one!!

The shop I work in, wholesale prices are up another 65 cents a yard. Plus all rolls of batting that are shipped by UPS are now being tagged with a $50. oversize service charge. The sad thing is a roll of batt is about 14-16 lbs. So we take a day and drive to Airtex and get our batting, their 80/20 and 60/40 are wonderful.Plus we can keep prices down. It's crazy how much more do the manufactors think we can spend. It's greed like with the oil companies.
Brenda

I noticed even the poly patting is going up...must be because of shipping, ect.

My LQS charges $9.50 and if you belong to a guild anywhere at all you get 15 pct off. This month is April Shop Hop in Maine so the discount I believe is 20 pct instead of the guild disc.

She takes phone orders and has a website. If you are interested, PM me. I have no affiliation other than I like to shop there. This is a small shop just getting their feet on the ground with it.

It is really sad about the price increases. I can't afford a LQS any more. Most of my purchases are done online since I can find cheaper prices there. It probably means that the LQS will fade away. I hate to see that because I much prefer going to the shop to look at the fabric and touch and feel it before I buy.

Our LQS owner is getting ready to close her shop and move into a space with a sewing instruction shop down the way from her. She says she made more doing the on-the-road shows around the area in two months than she had in almost a year in the shop. So sad.....I have been getting to work for her for fabric on occasion, and I am afraid that is going to end when she moves. Oh well, I've been lucky to have had the opportunity and have gotten some really nice fabric for my stash. Most of my projects will be coming from my stash now. I can't afford the prices that are being charged for a yard of fabric. Soon we will be doing like our grandmothers and great grandmothers and cutting up our old clothing when it's worn out to feed our love for quilting.

I noticed in my LQS shop last week that older fabric had been marked up to the same prices that the new fabric is. I can understand the new fabric being higher but should they remark the old fabric to the same price as the new fabric? I don't think so!!!!

trouble with that is then have to compete with over a million other online shops, many who are not B&M shops and have lower over heard, or they only sell end runs which they buy at flat fold bargain basement prices. Normally a LQS can not carry end runs because they are contracted to the Name brand companies and have to sell fabric at a certain price point!

AMEN.....I noticed this back in Jan before the NEW fabric prices had even gone up! and online it is the same...I have shopped at http://www.stitch-n-frame.net for years...and suddenly her OLD bargain fabric that she has been trying to sell off for years is now the same price as the NEW fabrics used to be! What was $4yd just 3 months ago is now $8...what the heck is up with that????

So much has gone up and not just fabric. Everything is up in price and not much we can do about and just hope that the prices will stablelize. By pricing to high people will stop buying as much and they are only hurting themselves by keeping those prices high. What comes next....??????

That's so true for me, too. While I haven't seen $12.50 a yard yet, I primarily sew charity quilts so I have to be careful about what I pay for fabric that I'm going to give away. I shop at the thrift shops for fabric, but that is pretty limited. I have also started shopping online even though I really want to support local LQS. I have 4 LQS near me and have chosen one that I plan to support. I hate to drive by the the other 3 but based on fabric selection, friendliness, and available notions, I have selected the one that is my favorite and spend $ there.

not to cherish? OOOOOOOOOOOOOOh OUCH! Wondering just how many more quilts he will get to JUST put on the bed! But think about this: less fabric for you to buy!

Went to a quilt/craft show a couple weeks ago & fabrics averaged $9-11/yard from most vendors (Sacramento, CA).
However, several fabrics were older lines &/or not the greatest quality. You had to know what you were looking for and at. I bought fabrics for 2 projects. Not bad, considering how many possibilities there were to choose from.

What's really sad is a friend told me when she visited one of her favorite shops recently, she saw older fabric that had been on the shelf for a while, with a new higher price. Seems the shop owner adjusted the prices of all her fabrics upwards to match the pricier new stuff. My friend was so mad she walked out without making a single purchase!

Alaska Sunshine, Great photo of your stash! Where did you obtain all the cardboard bolt frames to be so organized (or whatever you call those things)?
: )

In answer to the person who asked about prices for fabric going down if there is a bumper crop on cotton this next year, I say...prices don't seem to go down, only up...

their fabric is going up AND it is getting thinner....the last batch of Mirage blenders I bought were so thin you could read a magazine thru the yellow one!

At Hobby Lobby last week, all prices are adjusted UPwards. Thankfully, they
missed increasing Warm and Natural all cotton batting price. Don't understand
that .... At any rate, we will all be using up our "stash" sooner than expected.

and HL is fixing to go UP again this week!

Oh I see that! Isn't that maddening? The actual commodity (cotton) is almost $200 a share.

yep, it is WRONG, but they do it to help offset the NEW prices...that and by leveling the playing the field they might actually sell some of the new stuff, VS selling only the old stock and the NEW just sits...

cotton is a commodity and traded as such...quilt fabric is the last man on the totem pole when it comes to products being made from cotton...medical comes first, then house insulations, then clothing, then other textiles, THEN leisure goods!

Also, Connecting Threads sells a fine quality cotton for $6 a yard. I bought some. Very nice. I don't work for them, just a consumer.

I own one...and know of stores that brought them back....

Don't know if any of you are near a Walmart but our local one had 500 price cuts in their fabric department Monday- April 4. It's time to change out the seasonal stuff again.
Seems I as one of the last around here to know about it- the dept was swamped and the cuting line long- so unlike normal

yep, ebay is flooded with walmart fabric right now,..as are most of the quilting forums/groups...only people are buying it at $2yd and selling it for $6.00!

I remeber the yard counting machines- there were advantages and disavantages- they often were not straight on the grain when they tore leaving you with 3 yrds at the snip and 2 3/4 at the bottom of the tear. If a thread in the fabric didn't tear right it left a run in the fabric. Rather cut it by hand. Always verify whatr the person behind the counter is measuring to be sure I don't end up paying for more then I got.

Don't you just love the way JoAnn's cut their fab? After you size it up, you lose at least 1/2" of fab.

The historical data for cotton price is below:

US cents per Pound
Mar-2010","85.79
Feb-2011","213.18

The raw price of cotton has increased 250 percent in one year.
Just wanted to put a data fact to the issue at hand.

I sent you a PM :-D

Prices usually don't come down. Remember when gas was $4 a gallon before and everyone raise their rates. Then it drop and no one lower their prices. They are doing the same again. Some thing is going to have to give because they can't keep raising the prices and expecting people to buy when they don't get raises.

Sad to say my LQS just closed. I am so sad :(

Prices on fabric have steadily been going up for a long time. But somethings have lways been high. Approx 22 years ago I planned to make my husband nice dress pants- when I factored out the fabric, zipper, etc the cost at even that time was approx 80- that did not include the painstaking frustration of making them. Sewing in some respects has become a 'only those who can afford hobby' My mother talked of shoping for dress fabric at the grain mill. Chicken feed sacks were made of exactly one yard of fabric. The bags were in a variety of fabrics- Each dress required 3 yards so the next girl out of 5 who needed one got to pick the sacks- the guys working the grainery would have to move stacks and stacks of bags for ladies shopping this way to get the number of bags in a certain fabric.

Everything seems to go up except our income-----but as along as we keep buying if we honestly do not need it------will never change. I have decided no more fabric unless I have to have it to finish something. I have never over bought anyway so it will not be an issue. I could never imagine buying a whole bolt or 60.00 worth of fabric at a time. If I run out---time for a different hobby I think. :lol:

I keep saying I'm going to do that too...until I see something at the LQS or online I can't do without--LOL

I know------hard to keep ourselves in line----well we only live once as they say. And I often just tell myself I cannot take it with me. At least if we keep saying it, maybe one day we will do it. LOL

Maybe someday--LOL--at least I keep saying that to myself! When I tell DH that I am only going to buy what I need he rolls his eyes. I think he is much more realistic than I am!!!

Ouch, that is a lot for a yard. Bargain fabrics here I come:-)

then it is time to do what I did at the beginning of the year...STOP getting the email notifications from the online shops...just UNSUB....

seriously....it is like an addiction and you have to own up to it and walk away from it...move on....

or else...

Well looks like you could go without buying for sometime if you could bear to go cold turkey. LOL