Let's Talk Money

Hey guys! 

I promise March's block of the month is coming very shortly (I swear, it's sewn and I have the photos and everything!) but tonight I really gotta talk about something that business owners all prickle about:

Money.

I mean, we all know fabric is the key to ultimate happiness, but you need money to buy fabric. Therefore... I present the argument that money CAN buy happiness. In the form of fabric. And chocolate. Chocolate too. 

When your fabric arrives from me, it's really the end of a very long supply chain starting in the cotton fields of India, China, and the United States. (These countries are the three leading producers of cotton.) A bad harvest here, as has happened in the past few years, sends ripples far up the supply chain, as the demand for this raw material is by no means shrinking! 

Then, the cotton is made into thread, the thread woven into cloth referred to as greige (pronounced gray) goods. These greige goods are purchased by the companies who make the fabric printing plates and print the fabric for various manufacturers such as FreeSpirit. There's a lot of variability here- Jaftex has chosen to bulk buy greige goods to hold them for a few months at the current (higher) price, but they think this isn't the end of cotton prices going up. 

Then we have those that put it on the bolts, and cargo fees, and, and, and- you get it. There's a million people involved here. (Read: You're supporting LOTS of people by buying fabric!) Their fees along the way are increasing too, due to increased operating costs. Everyone passes these costs down the line, and we have inflation. This all gets into macroeconomics, and that was a whole thing that I skipped in school, so, I'll leave it to you on your time to see why this is. (There's lots of interesting theories about inflation.)

And yep. Inflation has hit hard in this industry. There was actually a price increase in the beginning of the year that we absorbed, but this latest round, we just simply can't absorb and cover our own costs. Believe it or not, we gotta eat too! 

So when does this all happen? How much are prices going up? Tula will be going from $12.25 per yard to $12.65. Widebacks will go from $12 per half yard to $13, as there was a larger increase on those. We'll be taking the site down while we update all the pricing, which we're officially scheduling for March 22nd. So get your orders in now at the current prices, and lock those preorders in too! 

Sorry about the complete text block that is this blog post, but I wanted to get this very important info out there so you could do a bit of planning and see what you might be needing to add to your stash before then. 

And if you don't believe me, here's the President of Jaftex saying the same thing in his blog 

I'll be back with a happier post soon! And I have some exciting other fabric-y things to share too!