It's not a dying in my area. But I live near Paducah so you know it's big here.

At over 3 billion a year I don't think it's dying.

This blog has some of the survey statistics.
<http://with-heart-and-hands.blogspot...y-results.html>

I also want to say that in the grade schools here one of the art projects they do is to make paper quilt blocks then they glue them to a larger piece of paper.

Quilters Newsletter released a study a few months ago on the average quilter and if you take a look at the average age of 62 and the market share of 14% you'd have to say that its a dying art.

here's a link to the report

http://www.quilts.com/announcements/...0_OneSheet.pdf

Maybe it's because I've recently started quilting and am looking for shops, magazines anything quilting, but I think it's coming back in this area of NC.

Just look at the pictures of national and international quilt shows. Quilts are more and more turning into fancy and sophisticated works of art, some worth thousands of $$. Is possible that traditional quilting may be slowing down, but I guess is to be expected. More and more quilters want to do their own designs, just like on any other form of art: creative expressions are worth more than copies.

I think sewing in general has really declined in the last few decades. It used to be a requirement in school for girls (& sometimes boys depending on the school) but now in many places it is not even offered. In the 80's there were fabric stores in most malls- where I lived anyhow & you never see that anymore either.

In my area of Connecticut it's pretty big. We have at least 6 quilt shops within driving distance along with Joann's.

I used to cross stitch (since the early 90's) and that seems to be fading a bit, but that comes and goes.

Since I'm relatively new to sewing and quilting, and because of the availability of shops in my area I'd like to think it's on the up side.

When my DD went to high school several years ago - their Home Ec teacher asked the girls if they wanted to learn to sew clothes or quilts and all the girls said quilts - so they all pieced quilts. My DD wound up making 3 quilt tops in three years. I had the first one machine quilted for her and she took it to her college dorm with her. Then the other tops were here after she graduated from college and moved to Paducah - so I had them machine quilted and gave them to her at two different wedding showers tha she had.

I think its thriving - but they may just be me with all my fabric purchases (wink wink) - I think it cycles like anything else - but once you are bit by the bug its hard to shake and there are so many ways to be creative with quilting - so I vote for thriving. just my opinion.