The 82 year icon is closing all stores this month

May 6th

Over the past few months, I have been mourning the end of an era. One day, very soon, Jo-Ann Fabrics will be out of business.

The demise of the fabric store giant is, in my opinion, a sign of the times. Like woodshop and home economics, the era of learning how to build a table or sew a garment is no longer something the majority of young people learn.

Certainly, there will still be specialty fabric stores where quilters can go to buy their fabric but, it seems, the days of a high school girl sewing her own homecoming or prom outfit are over.

Jo-Ann Fabrics was founded in 1943. It was a venture for two families and, when they expanded in the early 1960’s, changed the name to Jo-Ann Fabrics. Yes, there is an Infallible Wikipedia page which shares the following:

“German immigrants Hilda and Berthold Reich, Sigmund and Mathilda Rohrbach, and Justin and Alma Zimmerman opened the Cleveland Fabric Shop in Cleveland, Ohio in 1943. After further expansion, the store’s name was changed to Jo-Ann Fabrics in 1963. The store’s name was created by combining the names of the daughters from both families: Joan and Jacqueline Ann.

Jo-Ann Fabrics became a publicly held corporation traded on the American Stock Exchange under the name of Fabri-Centers of America, Inc. in 1969. The company made its first acquisition with the purchase of Cloth World, a 342-store southern company, in 1994. At the time of the acquisition, Fabri-Centers operated 655 stores.”

There are many reasons for the decline of Jo-Ann Fabrics – non-profitable stores, too much debt, inability to find an investor – to name the primary reasons.

But I get back to what I think is the biggest reason: people are simply not learning, or interested in learning, how to sew.

My seventh grade year I attended Wilson Junior High school (no middle schools in those days!) in Yakima, Washington, and there was no greater shock to my system than having what had been a half mile, approximately 15-minute walk, to Nob Hill Elementary school, to now making a daily 1.3 mile hike each way to my new Junior High.

I pretty much hated it but there was NOT a choice. My mother was not going to be driving me to school every day, so I just had to suck it up.

Another thing I absolutely hate is being late. So every morning – and believe me some of those mornings were dark and cold, sometimes snowy – I would haul my 12- to 14-year-old self out the door to make sure I made it to Wilson on time.

But afternoons were another story. My route home, just in reverse, always – yes ALWAYS – included a stroll through the strip mall where a Safeway was located. The layout of the stores was, actually, pretty clever. You entered at the west end, for example, and could walk through every store and exit on the east end, enjoying heat in the cold months and air conditioning in the warm months. Plus, there were interesting things to see.

So every afternoon I would start with Discount Fabrics on the west, then buy a Big Hunk candy bar or a bag of Corn Nuts at Tieton Village Drugs, make my way through Safeway and, sometimes, go into Wigwam (think Dollar Tree but more eclectic), before continuing on my way home.

When I was in eighth grade, I took my first Home Economics class and the first half of the year was sewing. When we were assigned the task of getting a yard of fabric because we were going to be making a dress, my world was opened up and suddenly Discount Fabrics became a very important place.

Over the next four years, I spent many hours there looking at, feeling, considering, contemplating, and buying fabric, thread, zippers, and buttons. Except for collecting pens and stationery, there was nothing I loved more than looking at and thinking about fabric. I even considered, when applying for my first job, working in either an office supply store or a fabric store. I ended up as a filing clerk for a Ford dealership which probably saved me spending all my earnings on office supplies or fabric.

It turned out that I was good at sewing and it filled a creative need. I’ve made tablecloths and placements, sewn children’s costumes, put together bean bags and stuffed animals, made what’s known as a ‘puff’ quilt and tied fleece blankets. And I pretty much never got rid of any of the leftover fabric remnants.

Best of all, there was always a nearby fabric store to feed my version of sourdough starter. When the hubby and I first got married, I was introduced to Hancock Fabrics at the corner of Fauntleroy Way and Alaska street in West Seattle. It was there I bought most of the fabric to make the hubby the aforementioned puff quilt. That quilt took me four years to complete, by the way, but we still have it.

When we moved to what is now Sammamish, the nearest fabric store was Jo-Anns in Bellevue, about a twenty minute drive from our home on the Sammamish plateau. Up until our kids were born, those were the years of making tablecloths, napkins, and placements. I also made an adorable teddy bear themed baby quilt which I gave to my sister-in-law when she was expecting my niece.

In the 1990’s I sewed costumes for my daughter and son, including a princess dress and wizard robes for them to wear at her seventh birthday party, as well as many other garments for school events and Halloween.

When we moved to Kirkland in 2004, our house was about a half mile from Hancock Fabrics and, being that the Rainbow Girls I advised needed custom dresses, this marked my peak sewing years. I was at Hancock’s at least twice a week, or so it seemed, for about seven years. The chain went bankrupt in 2016 and it was back to JoAnn’s whenever I needed something.

After our move to Mount Vernon, there were the occasional projects which required a visit to Jo-Anns, a short ten-minute drive. And while I have made the occasional trek there for a project, my days of intense sewing are now past me.

I’ve discovered that sewing had become something I did out of necessity, not because it’s been my true passion. I know people whose passion it is and you can hear it in their voice and see it on their face when they start talking about their projects.

For sure there was always a sense of pride when I finished a beautiful dress. But. There was something else there too. A sense of relief that it was finished. The number of people asking me to sew them a dress got to be so many that I finally had to impose an oath on anyone I DID sew for to promise to never disclose who their seamstress was.

My sewing days are – mostly – over. But for some reason I still have a small stack of Rubbermaid bins with fabric remnants from years of projects. You just never know when some new inspiration will hit and that fabric will come in handy.

A few links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo-Ann_Stores

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hancock_Fabrics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigwam_Stores_Inc.

In a previous blog post about the invention of the sewing machine and I delve into some of my sewing adventures and mishaps: https://barbaradevore.com/2019/09/10/howe-its-made/