Quilt shops
 

There are two quilt shops in my city and the other day I went to both of them. I was looking for some fabric that had something to do with nursing. Both shops had the same material but one was charging 10.80 a yard and the one that I bought the fabric from charged me 12.87. Bet you can't guess what shop I will be going to from now on. If I wouldn't have had a gift card I would have bought from the other shop.

Pat in MN

its like that around here too... Amazing isn't it.. Guess one has more over-head than another..

It happens all of the time. I am really careful where I buy fabric these days. I can't always get the best price but it does pay to shop around.

We have a great quilt shop in Hillman, MI, where all of the cotton quilting fabric is $9.99/yd. I believe that batiks are a bit more, but not much, and wide backs are also a bit more. Another shop in the area charges an average of $11.50/yd. Over the course of a year that buck fifty a yard makes a huge monetary difference!! And the Hillman shop offers all highest quality, beautiful fabric by leading manufacturers and designers. I love shopping there.

Can you mention the other shop's price and see if they'll match? I did that when I bought my sewing machine.

It is rather like that online...one place $11.50...the next $9.20...and then I found $15.00. All for the exact fabric!

That's why I like to use quiltshops.com when looking for a certain fabric or line of fabric. You may not get all the shops that carry the fabric but at least you can check prices.

I don't think the shop is being greedy. The rent at one quilt shop might be higher than another. There are a lot of overhead expenses to running a quilt shop. What I find offensive is when on-line quilt shops want to ship fabric ONLY in a priority envelope even if it is as little as 1/4 yard. But I can understand that they don't want to have other envelopes around since the USPS offers those envelopes free. I worked closely with an owner of a popular quilt shop and it wasn't easy watching the stress of running the shop take a toll on her health.

It pays to shop around for the best buy.

I agree that sending small amounts of fabric at Priority Mail rates is not cost effective for the consumer. The free envelopes may have something to do with it, but the main reason is probably that the shipper can print and pay for the label on-line and at a discount and then have free carrier pick-up. On-line post office shipping prices for Priority Mail have always included Delivery Confirmation and now recently they have added a modest insurance.