Joann, I Stan
It’s official: the reign of Craft Queen Joann, is over.
My store is slated to close today, April 28, 2025, and as much as the hoarder crafter inside of me wants to go check out what’s left of the retail giant, I won’t. I want to remember the store as it once was, not this, “Bed, Bath and Beyond Gone/Big Lots of Overpriced Kitsch” she’s been reduced to. It wouldn’t be fair to her memory, and oh, what memories I’ve had in that store!
When I first started sewing, I practically lived in Joann on the weekends. Those $1.99 pattern sales were everything! When the Mimi G’s were released, you had to either: get there early, or hide whichever ones you wanted in the sea of untouched fleeced bolts in the back of the store until you could afford to buy them, because those sold out first.
And don’t get me started on The Table! The Table was where sewists of all ages gathered to peruse the various Look Books of the Big Five pattern companies (Vogue, McCalls, Simplicity, New Look and Burda). I’ll always remember every year, around Halloween, a grandma and her granddaughter would always sit at The Table, looking through the books for costume ideas and spending the sweetest of quality time together.
Yes, Joann used to be amazing, don’t let anyone—or it’s now gauntly appearance—tell you differently. It used to be wall-to-wall fabric, thread aplenty, really friendly staff who were knowledgeable about sewing, and there were people! Yes, long cutting counter lines full of people! They used to use the Now Serving sign above the cutting counter, the paper tickets, and all three cutting counters!
And then…something happened. I won’t blame the mayhem that was 2020, although that didn’t really help, but after that year, my Joann location and it’s customers drifted apart like sewing high-piled velvet without a basting stitch, pins, or a walking foot. Most of the time, it would be me, three other people and the staff in the store after 2021. Oh, and let’s not forget the ever-present resident named Fleece. There were aisles full of the fluffy stuff. Anything else was either in boxes, out of stock and/or never restocked and the home decor items became tew much.
Why was there soooo much home decor and holiday decorations? The decorations were fire, ngl, but it was a craft and fabric store. Who was going in there just to buy the really expensive lawn decorations and five-foot tall Christmas gnomes!?! If home decor was needed, I could’ve easily visited the Marshall’s next door! All I wanted was yarn and fabric and speaking of the stretchy stuff…
I’ll say this too: Joann’s fabric…bites lip in dramatic way…was not that great. Wait! Don’t start attacking me with seam rippers for saying what we all know to be true, especially the ones that have been sewing for awhile.
When I first started sewing, it was cool to go in there and purchase the “stretchies,” but when my style evolved from strictly stretchy, to a more complex fabric palette, what do you think happened?
I grew. Ms. Joann didn’t.
That cheap spandex—and I don’t mean “cheap” as in the price because Joann’s fabric was high in cost, but not high in quality—might have looked a mess, but it helped me learn how to sew initially, but I needed more. That satin was satisfying, but silk was like milk: I needed it to do my body goodt and Joann was lacking in what the bugs were splatting.
If there was real silk in that store, it wasn’t there in my sewing lifetime. You had “silky-types,” which were cool, but certain ones always managed to get snagged by the sewing machine needle, new or old, which caused the fabrics to pull in a terrible way.
If there was 100% wool in my Joann, I never saw it. It was always “suiting-types” and, I suspect, a polyester blend that made me itch something terrible.
If there was good denim…I never saw it, either. It was always that paper thin, stiff, “designer” denim that was pretty much useless if you wanted to make a good pair of jeans and have the ability to sit down comfortable in them. I’m looking at you, Lucky Brand.
Oh! And their “special occasion” fabrics? Occasionally basura. One fabric that comes to mind is a pink glitter nightmare that I had the pleasure of finding in the remnant bin and I decided to make a dress out of out. Let me tell you…I’m still finding that glitter two years later on various surfaces. The glitter fell off of that, weird stretch/no streak back “special occasion” fabric, like the needles fell off of Charlie Brown’s mid Christmas tree.
However, there were some really good fabrics in there, like the faux fur and leather and I don’t think I’ll ever find that glorious ponte black knit again…but Joann was for the beginner. If you have a desire to try better quality fabrics that don’t shed glitter like a house cat and the color doesn’t tint everything you own, you’ll eventually find better retailers. Seriously, when I would sew certain Joann fabrics, I had to paint my nails a dark color because if I didn’t, white became brown quickly.
I’m talking that talk about her, but it’s all love. Joann was bae! She was my home away from home and I hate that we got here. I wanted her to be around for forever and one day. No seamstress should ever outlive her fabric store!
Well…thanks for the smiles, Joann.
Thanks for those 60% fabric coupons, but I’m not thanking y’all for the Smiles Rewards program. That program sucked compared to your “Brother-in-Craft,” Michael’s reward program. Done spent a band in there and all I got was $5 in rewards…
A special thanks goes out to the employees that got so overwhelmed by my hauls, that they used to forget to ring up stuff, so a lot of things ended up being $free.99.
And thank you for being the friend I never knew I needed, Joann, my golden sheared gurl.
May you rest forever in Blizzard Fleece.
Ex-oh, ex-oh