Canada, Australian and British quilters do y'all need some teabags to toss in your local harbors?

The prices you guys are quoting in that thread is mind boggling. Why on earth are you guys paying that much. I saw prices at 22-30 dollars a meter or something like that with the exchange rate. What are the prices for silk, or wool or linen(which are usually the higher priced fabrics). Australia should at least pay cheaper for Batiks as Bali is closer to y'all.

I'll send teabags!!

I don't know about Australia and UK but I know that just recently, the US dollar was right in line with the Canadian dollar. So other than the outrageous taxes they pay I can't imagine why it is SO much higher there. I'm a Stampin' Up demonstrator and the prices in the Canadian catalog are insane compared to the US prices.

When we were in Canada we ate at a McDonalds and for the 5 of us, it was over $30. In the US it's usually around $15-$17.

Australia produces very little cotton (too dry), we import a lot of fabric from Asia and America. We do have fabric produced here, but it is quite expensive...around $21 per metre would be the minimum. Most of the quilting fabric we have comes from America...I did score a bargain with some Norman Rockwell fabric - I found it at Textile Traders (where I met Litacats) that was on the $1 metre bargain table. Finding fabric that cheap is one of those once in a while serendipitous things...If we go to a smaller LQS, it gets pretty expensive. The cost of labour in Australia is huge...so most companies go offshore, which is a real shame, because the first thing to go when you do that is quality....and I won't bang on about ethics and buying local!

I have paid over £13-00 per metre which according to todays exchange rate equals about $20.00. So when I read of you picking up bargains at less than $5.00 - I'm a little green with envy.............can you forgive me?!!!

We pay these high prices because we still want to quilt. I shop around a lot, get what I can online - I can import fabric from the US, and even with shipping it's cheaper than my LQS.

I know that Ireland and the UK also apply customs charges on imported fabric. I don't get 'caught' all that often, but when I was in business in the UK and ordered some bolts from the US, the customs charges added another £1 per yard on to what I had already paid, and that was 15 years ago.

Of course we envy you the bargains you all seem to get, we are only human.

We pay these prices because we don't have any choice, generally quilt shops and shows are the only places to buy our fabric and they are few and far between. I never buy even a metre of fabric, it is fq or long quarters and you learn to make it go a long way, wasting little. Backing is a problem and so far I have used calico, which I believe you call muslin, which is cheaper.
I, like a lot of you have very little money to spare.
I guess import tax and v.a.t is the reason it cost so much, they are both high over here.
Never mind, I could not give up this hobby, just have to eat less.!!!! good way to slim.

Yes we pay far too much for fabric in Australia, yes we all understand about buying local and all that but I recently wanted to purchase some Robert Kaufmann Fusions from my local quilt shop and the price was $26 per metre
(which is 39 inches). So home I come and get on the ole puter and ordered what I wanted over the internet. Landed in Australia only cost me $11 per yard...
Most of us are on limited income or self funded retirees so we have to careful how much we spend on our addiction er sorry hobby :-)

Canada reporting in! I can go to my LQS and buy good quality quilting cotton for $12 - $16 a metre (batiks are more expensive). Or I can go to Wally World and buy crapola for $5.00 - $7.00 a metre, which is what they sell here. I feel that if I am going to make a quilt and spend all of that time and energy on it, I want the materials to be of high quality. So I use very good quality fabric, thread (Mettler's silk-finish 100% cotton), batting and backing. I don't mind paying the $$$$ for quality materials but, that being said, I don't make very many large quilts because it is cost-prohibitive.

I also order online quite a bit because I can get good prices, a much wider selection of good quality, brand name fabrics, and I have access to full collections of co-ordinating fabrics (Hancock's of Paducah and Over the Rainbow are my favourites). So I have that option available to me if I choose to use it.

I don't feel like I am being gouged or anything - that's just the way it is, with fabric as with anything else. Everything cost more here on the Eastern Edge than it does in the US (actually most things cost more here than in most other parts of Canada :cry: ).

So, no, don't send tea bags. I can buy them here ( for about $4.00 for a box of 72!) ;-)

I too am green with envy with the prices you pay for your fabric as well as the choice you have. My local shop charges $11 - £20 but it is for a metre - 39" approx.

I have also bought from the states and most of the time am lucky that I am not charged import duties - it depends on chance.

To increase my 'stash' (which is miniscule compared to some of the piccies I have seen on here) I haunt our local charity (thrift?) shop for cotton garments that are deemed not good enough for sale - their customers are very choosy.

So I have spent the last few days, taking apart some lovely plain and not so plain men's shirts to re-use the fabric. 4 shirts cost $1.55 or £1. Washed, and lightly starched they are great in scrappy quilts.

I also save up for the sales and then go on a shopping spree. The only problem is that the colour shown on my screen is not what arrives. Recently bought a lovely dark green floral and it was virtually black! This won't be used in my green quilt and will have to be left to another project.

To let the green complexion subside, I am now going to my tiny stash and plan my next project!

sorry, typing with a bit of a handicap at the moment, and my £ & $ got mixed up. The price is $11-$20.

This could be an explanation of why the fabric is so expensive in all places other than the US. I hope it makes sense.

I used to work for a company that exported drinking glasses to Europe and USA from Australia. They had to do huge manufacturing runs to fill the orders from around the world. The more glasses that were made, the less each glass cost, although we in Australia paid less per glass than the exported glasses. Now applying this to fabric, the bigger the yardage of fabric the manufacturer makes, the cheaper it is to make per yard, and the cheaper it is to buy. I would assume that the higher prices in the overseas market (the rest of the world) is subsidising the lower prices of the domestic market (USA), in the same way the glasses we exported did.

Still with me? :D So when the fabric manufacturer makes x amount for the domestic market, and x amount for the overseas market, the overseas markets subsidise the domestic market. Even accounting for freight and import duty, a difference of $10.00+ per metre retail seems over the top.

The import duty on fabric into Australia has dropped by 30% in the last 12 years, but we are not paying 30% less for our fabric.

And while I am on a roll:

My LQS owner was complaining to me that her purchase price on a particular line of fabric was more than what Spotlight was charging retail for the exactly the same line. She had to place her order over 12 months ago. What the importer had left over (orders not honoured?) was offered to Spotlight at a bargain basement price. Any why not, the importer had already made his money from all the LQS's. It sure made the LQS owner look greedy, but she could not match the Spotlight price without losing money.

Someone is making alot of money, but it is not the LQS owners. By the time we buy fabric, it has been through alot of middle men each wanting to take their cut.

One of the ladies on here from France said that their government charges a LUXURY tax on BOOKS!!!! Unbelievable! In my opinion having any kind of books in your home is a necessity not a luxury. If it's a luxury I live in one of the most luxurious homes in America because we have tons of books--art, craft, sewing, quilting, music, antique, novels, the entire collection of Boxcar Children books, Goosebumps, kids books, RC plane books, a huge if a little eclectic collection.

Books are indeed a necessity of life, like food and water! Books feed your soul and mind. How can anyone possibly justify that they are a luxury?

My stash closet seems to be full to the extreme when I consider what you pay for fabric. It's sad that there are so many middle-people who get their "cut" of your hobby needs. Fabric and books definitely are two of the necessities of life.

But America mostly imports it from China. Why not import it yourself from the mills in China? It's not like its that far for y'all.

tell me about it I'm almost emerald green ha ha!!!!!

It must be the same everywhere-
someone(s) in a political group somewhere, or someone(s) in an answerable-to-no-one government bureau somewhere
made the decision to raise taxes/duties or maintain taxes/duties on items that would bring in revenue in spite of costing too much.

Of course books are not a luxury!

But nevertheless someone somewhere placed the taxes/duties on them, and it's harder than pulling teeth to get a tax/duty removed once it's been instated.
.

I know Connecting threads is cheaper because they cut off the middle men. Why don't the LQS's you guys have get together and find out who they are and maybe do one big order, which they can do if they combine their orders?

Or something along that lines. Not sure.

Printed books are zero-rated for VAT here, but the electronic equivalent (for a Kindle, Sony Reader, iPod/iPad) costs 21% more. It's one of my pet peeves as there's so little storage space in my shoebox/house.

Tax is the biggest issue, along with a very high minimum wage and huge overheads for anyone setting up shop outside their home. I'm not sure the wholesale price is the worst part of what we have to pay in the end!

love your avatar tussymussy. Is it from somewhere near you? As you can see I come from England too. In my case Ramsgate.

Is it cheaper for those of you outside the US to have someone here buy you fabric and mail it over?

Hey all,
What is a tea bag? Yes I find fabrics here in Canada are expensive at quilting stores usually allways over $20 a meter. Fabricland has a quilting cotton section and it is $20 or more a meter but with your membership card it is always 50% off but I notice it is not high quality cottons. Our thread here is expensive as well, I will one day order it from connecting threads as it is so cheap on there but I don't have a credit card, only Paypal which makes purchasing online dificult becasue not many places have paypal for payment.

Aully,
The Boston Tea Party was when the Americans had enough of Englands rule in the 1700's and they were tired of paying taxes for no reason (no taxation without representation) and they threw crates and crates of tea (bags) into the harbor to ruin it and prove a point....it was one of the events leading to our independence :)

Thank you Brenda, I had wondered too, though I realised about the Boston tea party I hadn't associated the two.

When my Australian friend was here to visit with me, she fell in love with my "Bugs in a Jar" quilt and I gave her a pattern for it and asked her if would be able to get the faric and that is when she told me the price. I went into my stash and gave her enough for two quilts and that is not a whole lot of fabric. All she had to do was get the background then.

I felt so bad for her. I bet a lot of ladies can't afford to quilt.

I was wondering why australia imports fabric from the US. I do believe a lot of our fabric comes from Bali, Indodesia, Japan etc. so does our wool for knitting.

Since I brought up the wool. I am now curious how much wool cost in Australia, since a lot of it is made there. How much does a four oz hank cost? I do knit too and must pay at least 9.00 for 4 oz of wool.

Most of US cotton is used around the world for fabric production.

What happens here as there is very little mill left is
The cotton is grown in the US
Shipped to China
the fabric made in China and then shipped to where ever the orders are.

There are also lots of other countries that grow and produce fabric. Mostly in the middle east and east.

Why it may be more expensive for others is a whole host of reasons
First they have import/export duties, taxes and tariffs that we in the US do not have or are cheaper.
Second a lot of those countries have high taxes and or VAT
that can add an additional 10-20% over the base cost.
Second the min wage is higher in some of the countries so the over head is higher.



You have a trade off.
We in the US expect and almost demand cheap prices and that has lead to us importing and owing China more and more.

Other countries may feel that is not what is best for their citizens and they have instituted high taxes and other programs that they believe will help rather then hurt

Connecting Threads only ship to US and Canada :thumbdown:

I'm just guessing here but it seems that someone overseas could order lots of fabric from say Hancock's of Paducah as a customer sell it for $2 over the cost per yard over what it cost them and sell it out of their home and make a profit. Travel to guilds/groups in the area and sell it to sewers.

It sits in my sitting room. It is a picture of the side of a William Morris plant pot.

Thank you tussy, it would certainly be a grand pot, I love that era. Welcome from someone else in Uk too by the way. by the seaside as well, but in the S.E. Ramsgate. Small world, My longest standing friend of over 50yrs comes from Weston, we met whe we joined the wrens

Hey, your friend wouldn't be a Betty would she? I have a friend, Betty, who often travels to that side of the UK.

I love the Arts & Crafts movement as well as Art Nouveau. I grew up in Bristol and was very lucky to live in the only house designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh outside of Scotland.

Talking of Art Nouveau, there is a famous American silversmith whose name I have forgotten, but begins with D. He made lovely ladles and other things in that style. Does anyone know his full name.

My DGD and I are in early stages of planning a trip to Ireland, England/Wales, and France for next May or June. So if we can save our money and everything else goes well, we will be visiting those countries. So I will post my trip a month or so before we will go and if you can connect with us, I will bring you some fabric. By then we will have our itenerary down. You can tell me what you want and how much and I will try to get it. I was planning on a little shop hopping over there but now I don't think so. One place on line that has really good sales is Fabric.com. Right now he has a lot of good fabric for $5.00 a yard. I do not know if he ships over there but you could check. I couldn't afford to quilt if I lived over there.

What a lovely idea. It is difficult to manage financially, the reason I have not made anything bigger thatn lap quilts and only three of them for the grandchildren. I have thought of ordering from USA and having it shipped, other people seem to have done this and it works okay. I will try the web address you suggest. Thank you Galvestonangel.

One problem is that the larger the order, the more likely you'll be caught for customs and VAT. Smaller orders have a better chance of slipping through unnoticed.

Long ago a friend of a friend used to sell fabric her husband would bring her back from business trips to the US. She charged just over her cost, but you had to be a friend and have the same taste in fabrics as herself!

Fabric.com does ship internationally, as do many of the other online sites like Fabric Depot, Hancocks of Paducah, Keepsake Quilting, Erica's (those are just some I've used over the years). Global Priority envelopes used to slide through most frequently and I sometimes had an order in less than a week! Those were the good days before money was such an issue, LOL.

Now I mainly do mini's, table runners, wallhangings or lap quilts (which are quilted on to a fleece blanket instead of batting and backing, which saves a LOT of money!)

The cost of shipping, wharf charges, customs agents charges, Customs duty and sales tax, distributors costs, and the LQS profit, all combine to bump up our prices.

Early this year I was looking for a Michael Miller Fairy panel. Cost in Australia? $22.95. US cost? $9.95. Even with postage it was way less to buy it from the US. Recently I bought 5 yards of fabric from the US for $17.95. The cost for the same fabric in Australia was at least $25 per metre.

I buy wool direct from Bendigo Woollen Mills. 200 gm balls (about 7 oz) of 12 ply are $11.95 - Patons Jet 12 ply is $6.95 for a 50gm ball. Aran jumper for DS cost me about $60. The mill also has free postage for orders over $30.

Printed matter in Australia is duty free. Fabric is also - unless you are bringing in Commercial quantities, then you pay duty and sales tax on it.

Hi Earthwalker,

I just wanted you to know that sometimes I feel like I am on a soapbox when I start going on about exporting jobs instead of being made in our respective countrys. Buying local has gotten to be a joke for most items, when even candy mints are imported from somewhere else to the US. Last package I purchased came from Mexico.

No wonder fabric is so expensive, the shipping and handling charges have gone out of sight.

Thanks for listening to my gripe.

Longarm

Here in Ontario I spend $8.00-$16.00 a metre. There is some that is more expensive but I refuse to pay more. I do usually wait for sales. Fabricland sells some wonderful quilt fabric lately and if you get 50% off you can get it from $4 to $10 a metre. Also our minimum wage is $10hr. I know that is not only reason for our higher prices but is does add to it. Also if I travel to the States it cost me gas money and usually a meal. I do go once and a while.