I worked at Joann's from about 1995 to 2006 and loved every minute of it! The people I worked with were great and the customers were wonderful. I worked at the same Joann's which was really small and crowded, then the mall was made into a strip mall and Joann's grew 3 to 4 times it's original size. The move was a riot, we did not have any crafts in the old store really and this was new to all of us.

Then we took over the space next door and doubled our size. We had it all, crafts, floral, quilting, sewing machine sales and lessons, you name it we had it.

Back then Joann's was family owned. After I left Joann's and out of the area I decided to sell my stock in the company. Low and behold a few months after I sold my stocks the company was sold and my stock would have been worth a lot more. Oh well!

Anyways, I have seen how Joann's has changed and I do miss the more intimate service that we used to be able to give the customers and the quality and scope of the fabrics. As you stated about the fleece, who needs that much fleece and trying to find fabrics for clothes. thankfully I don't sew my own clothes anymore.

I do find the notions I need when I get to a Joann's.

Now Walmart is another thing. Prepackaged fabrics!!! I can see it for fat quarters, but 1 and 2 yard pieces???

Joann's is my hometown store. Started life as Cleveland Fabrics and I shopped there with my mom in the early '60's. Unfortunately what they carry in clothing fabrics is an embarrassment, they've really catered to crafters lately. Also unfortunately, they've driven out of business all of the independent fabric retailers that we used to have. I know of one local store that is very nice but very small. My local store is fine, and usually busy. The only maker space I know of is in Columbus but I haven't been.

Are there that many consumers in the market for fine fabrics now? I made lots of my own clothing when I was younger, but now I’m 65 and hardly ever sew. I can buy clothing cheaper and better than I could make it. So I guess I wasn’t a devoted seamstress.

There are several mom and pop fabric stores in my area of north Missouri/southern Iowa that cater to the quilting crowd. But that’s a real specialization.

Merchandisers follow the market. ‘Crafty’ sells these days.

If I dont sew garments there is not much else that I find I want to sew. There are some things that I just dont find it worthwhile to sew and that includes knit shirts.

It is even difficult to find good home dec essentials anymore

Always been glad that I can sew, but my sewing has dwindled down to almost nothing. I am 68.

The folks who work at the store I have no problem with. It is the corporate management that has directed the business into the toilet.

The last time I was in there, a couple of months ago, I could not even buy machine needles. If it gets hard to even by machine needles, what hope for any of the other essentials.

I feel as if the company left their base behind as opposed to the idea that they changed with the market. I dont think that I quit sewing because I dont want to do it. I quit because it became just so limited as what was available. They quit me, the one who used to buy much. It has taken me longer to quit them. I just kept going back expecting to find something that it was increasingly obvious was not there anymore.

I have spent a good deal of time working in retail in my life and what I have seen in these modern times is that the market has become successful at creating the customer for what they want to sell, rather than creating the customer base because they have what the customer wants to buy.

Eventually, the customer becomes a customer for what they want to sell. And, what they want to sell is what gives them the highest profit margin. Of course.

At one retail venue that I worked at, the products that generated the highest profit were not the products for which the company was known. Rather, the highest profit margins were the odd and sundry items that were sold as impulse buys at the cash register, such as Lindor chocolates and beanie babies.

Certainly I am not a student of economies or business, but I have been a consumer for a long time and see that things have changed. Instead of trying so hard to have what the customer wants, they just create the customer that they want. That was about the same time that the "loyalty" cards came about, where you scanned the card each time you shopped and they threw you a bone once in a while with a coupon for your "loyalty".

That is why Joanns is full of fleece and glue and glitter and no good fabric. The profit margin is probably higher. Mostly because the things are cheaply produced and require little or no skill to use.

Gawd! I miss those old fabric stores. The real good ones have been mostly gone for the good part of two decades now. That is long enough that many young adults have no idea of what you are even talking about when you talk about those types of fabrics that used to be widely available. They have never heard of or seen those fabrics.

I remember Sofro Fabrics. It was one of the first to close when they all began to topple like dead trees.

There were changes in the textile industry about that same time and that is the time when most textile mills here turned off the machines and left the building.

Some parts of the world that had been textiles intensive just fell hard. It is my understanding that England had a healthy textiles industry that went down. Our own was already faltering by that time.

I think that what happened to the textiles industry had a lot to do with the demise in home sewing. I am not sure at all just what brought about the changes and the demise, but I suspect that it had something to do with cheap overseas labor.

It was not long that the industry stopped producing those old types of fabrics that we took for granted were going to be there in the store. It turned to synthetic knits and that god awful fleece. It is my opinion that they turned to producing the types of fabrics that suited the fast fashion industry for factory make clothing and left behind the market for better fabrics that many of us used to buy.

What the factory needed was knits for cheap tshirts. There was very little fit of any kind involved and they needed no construction details such as bust darts or shoulder darts.

Out sourcing cheap overseas labor gave us a standard for cheap clothes.

Some things I would not even bother to sew, such as most t-shirts. I never did like sewing with knits, anyway.

I still sew my pants and simple dresses to just how I like them and I am glad that I can do that. I will use mostly linen now because it is just about the only real fabric that is left to buy. But don't look for it a Joanns in any meaningful quantity or quality.

One reason that you might have gotten the different responses from men and from women is likely that more women feel that they "own" the ability to sew, whereas most men don't. Men have no reason to pretend that they know anything about it, and, therefore, they have no reason to make apologies as to the fact that they are paying someone else to do it.

I used to have a sewing business for home dec. I used feel the dismissiveness from some of my female customers as they wrote me off as the "sewing lady" and they viewed it as a lowly labor, although they could not do for themselves. I always dealt with the "lady of the house". My ability to sew something special for them was not a skill set that they had a real acknowledgement of.

This was especially true of those who had more recently come from cultures where sewing is viewed as common labor. In some cultures there is someone who sews, just as there is someone who bakes the bread or does the laundry. Many cultures out source these labors to those in the community that provide those services, rather than doing them in their own homes.

Yes, I remember So fro fabrics. At that time there was still Hancocks.

Now there is nothing as far as I concerned.

I have three Joann stores within 12 miles of my house, which I think is overkill by at least one. None of them are transitioned to maker spaces where anyone can go use the machines, although they do have studio space with 4-6 machines for classes they offer. I sew and sometimes craft but rarely buy at Joann. I quilt a little and don't care for their fabric, except I will buy the Kona cotton solids. I do think it's good they sell craft supplies for people who need them, but they overlap a lot with Michaels and Hobby Lobby. In the last year I did a few crafty things and because I have a Joann, Hobby Lobby and Michaels all within 2 miles, I checked prices online and bought where I could find my items for less - and it was never Joann.

We have a chain of nice, family owned fabric stores in our area that I usually frequent. It's just a fabric store - no craft supplies - and the fabric is excellent quality and current brands/designers. The fabric costs more, but I only make 2-3 quilts a year, and I also don't mind because it's nicer fabric. I also buy from online fabric stores like Missouri Star or Fabric dot com if they advertise something I know I'll use.

The fabric store in my parents' small town closed years ago. My mother drives 20 minutes to Joann in a nearby town to buy her sewing supplies.

I follow many quilters and sewers on Instagram who really do know their stuff and are quite prolific.

Finding fabric for doing piecing is not nearly as hard as finding fabric for sewing garments.

What part of the country do you live that you have 3 Joanns within distance?

I live in a large cosmopolitan metro area and there is one within my home base, but you will be hard pressed to buy even the basic essentials anymore at that store. It was bad before and almost entirely useless now with the virus.

There is one more about 20miles away but it is stuffed with craft and fleece and has very little real fabric. It is just more of the same.

There are a couple of others within a radius of somewhere around a 100+ mile round trip. It would not be worth anything to travel that far only to find that you have arrived at yet another Joannas much like the one that is closer. One may be close enough in miles to be considered to be local if not for the fact that , to get to it requires almost 30 miles extra to cross the river to get there. So, that is out and it is doubtful that it would be any different from the one on this side of the river.

I guess online is about the only real option.

The last time I was at the local store I could not even buy a package of machine needles. Before the virus it was almost impossible to even buy velcro or elastic, never mind any good fabric. When the virus hit one irony was that they actually got a shipment of elastic!

I dont know what happened to that new make over. I heard about it and saw a business article about how one within this metro area was turned into a "maker place", but never heard one word about it since. I am thinking that it must have been in 2018 that the changes were supposed to happen.

I only changed my sewing ambitions when the market moved away from selling sewing essentials.

Wednesday Morning, I'm in West Michigan. My stores are 2.1 miles from my house, 11 miles east, 12 miles north, and additionally there is one more 25 minutes west. They are all usually fully stocked and nice stores, for the most part. Two of them are a little bit smaller, but I've never not been able to find something I was looking for, aside from quality fabric. Stock may have run a bit thin when things started opening up over the summer, but stock in every type of good and store was low, so I don't blame them that much for that. Since that initial closure, stock hasn't been low in anything in my stores. I can't believe we need four in such a small area, so I won't be surprised if one or two ultimately close as a result of the pandemic.

I don't sew clothing. I quilt, and sew things like pillow covers, zipper bags and the like. I haven't sewn clothes in a very long time so I don't typically look at garment fabric.

Chicago suburbs here. JoAnn # 1 is 6 miles West of me. JoAnn #2 is 6 miles East of me. Joann #3 is 8 miles N. JoAnn # 4 is 40 minutes drive N.W. of me. I only went there when I meet a freind for lunch once or twice a year. Two Hobby Lobbies are within 4 miles of me but the fabric selection is sparse. Luckily there is an excelent quilting store 4 miles East of me.

I saw an article about Joanns in the business news this morning. It seems that Joanns has managed to profit during this time of the virus and they are going to continue on the path towards revamping the outlets into one that serves the crafts market more than the sewing market. That is too bad.

So much of this crafty type of stuff just produces silly stuff that no one needs from materials that are, or can be, of questionable value and sustainability-----junk made into other junk, mostly.

Wheras, sewing is representative of a skill backed with learning and technique. Or, at least, it used to be. most of the craft stuff is pure glitter and glue.

They have ceased to be a retailer of sewing supplies and are a junk craft monger.

I am so finished with Joanns.

There is a photo that went with the article and I wonder what Joanns did they take that photo shoot at. There are multiple cutting tables and a large well lit store. It is a complete 100% difference from the one in my area, and my area is an affluent area with lots of money to spend, so it is not as if I live in some little backwater place. There is one cutting table and it is always a mess and there are so few people being paid to work the store that it is a physical mess and check out is slow and tedious because only. a few people are doing what needs to be done.

The one near me is a rat hole, at best.

added that I guess reports of their demise were not true...They are just changing.

"So much of this crafty type of stuff just produces silly stuff that no one needs from materials that are, or can be, of questionable value and sustainability-----junk made into other junk, mostly."

Year ago, when rubber stamps were all the rage, my friend wondered why the fabric and crafts department of Walmart was in the corner of the building farthest from the entry. Wish I'd said it, but someone else opined: "If a customer is willing to spend $40 for stamps, ink and paper to make $3 worth of stationary, those customers need to be herded past everything else you have to offer."

Every now and then I run into someone buying multiple kits to make Christmas ornaments, or some such thing, for a church / Girl Scout / nursing home fundraiser. The last time I saw that, I asked about it, and the customer said, "Well, we'll probably sell them for less than the kits cost." What the heck?

I don't dislike Walmart, myself. Every now and then I go in and buy 2 3/4 yards of printed fabric to make eight more cloth napkins. They'll also make up my grocery order and have it ready for pick-up with no fee (Local grocery stores are charging for the service)

Yes, you are right that some will spend umpteen amounts of money to make something that is not worth any of it.

Sometimes it is best to just buy it ready made. Not everything that we create with our own skill sets and materials is worthy. There is an awful lot of junk created.