Unfortunately, yes. Not often in better quality fabrics that you find in your local independent shops. But as a former shop owner, I know it does happen or a bolt is spliced. The difference is, the better manufacturers will write on the bolt end if it is less than ordered. Most bolts come in 15yd put ups. If it is short it will be marked 13 1/2 for example and that is what is charged to the owner. If it was for a customer, I always measured it out anyway.

We *could* measure each bolt as it comes in but that really wouldn't be worth the time it would take.

But we do weigh every bolt as it comes in and if it seems to be noticeably over- or under-weight then we do take the time to measure it all out and report the difference. In addition to the time it takes to do the unrolling and re-rolling, it also takes time to report it to the maker, and do all the accounting adjustments, plus time spent keeping track of whether the refund was ever received, and also nagging the vendor a second time if they have overlooked our complaint.

Sigh.

Worked fabrics and crafts for several years and yes it is common not to have the amount on the bolt that it says. Sometimes you even have more than it says but not very often. I always have them measure a bolt of fabric before I purchase it.

my mom just bought a bold of thinsulbright and it was suppesed to be 10 yds and it was about 9. This was at Joanns, they measure it all there. :)

IF YOU didnt open it, take it and the receipt back and have them measure it.. They will do that for you. I just posted on this a few minutes ago on someone elses post.

My advice to all of you is to count the folds of fabric - 2 folds = 1yd. That isn't exact, but it is a pretty close estimate to what's there.

If the bolt is to have 10 yds, there should be 20 folds - If there's only 18 or 19 folds, you won't have 10 yds....

It is hard to tell if there are more than one piece on a bolt sometimes, though.

Sometimes the fabric is all crunched up on the inside by the cardboard, though, or folded back on itself. So it's best to count the folds on BOTH sides of the bolt, as a double-check.

OOPS!!! Never mind my question! Someone had already asked you the same thing.
Do they make any adjustments for you when that happens? I mean, you pay for 15 yards and discover that the bolt doesn't contain 15 yards. Are you just out of luck? :| :oops:

I always have my fabric measured i dont trust anyone

If the shortage is less than 1/2 yard I don't bother reporting it... unless there were several bolts in the shipment that came up short. All the makers charge by the 1/8 yard, so really, their yardage should be correct to the nearest 1/8 yard, and if not they should correct our bill to an 1/8 yard.

But... if it's just one bolt that's off by 1/4 yard, that's maybe $1.25 - $1.50 and it's not worth the time=money=labor costs to pursue it. So I shrug and sigh and ... move on.

We did have one episode a couple of years ago, with a very popular collection and one particular print I was *always* coming up short on. (This was before we started weighing the bolts as they came in.) So I measured several incoming bolts of the same print and what do you know, every one was short by a yard. So I notified the maker, and suggested that they check all their stock. Because if I was being shorted, all of their other customers would have been, too.

One more point. I've found that it is important that if we get *more* yardage than we should have, that I report that as well. It ensures that if I say "We've been shorted!" that I will be believed, because I want the count to be correct, no matter who benefits, us or the maker.