Front Porch: Joann will be missed, but the happy, crafty memories will remain

The Joann Fabric and Crafts store near where I live is closing, one of their 800 stores being shuttered around the country after the company filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Chapter 11 reorganization.

It’s certainly not news that yet another business is closing. Ever since COVID, this seems to be a regular happening. I don’t know all the market factors that have led to this, but here we are.

I have a long history with this store, and while I don’t sew much any more, there was a time …

Many many decades ago, as a young bride new to Spokane, I developed friendships with some crafty women, which I mean in the needle-and-thread sort of way. I had already taught myself how to knit, but they stepped in to teach me how to do embroidery and counted cross stitch, make flannel baby blankets (when that time came) and improve on the basic sewing I learned in a high school home economics class.

One of them showed me how to make no-sew fleece blankets, which I have now made in abundance and given as gifts to friends, varying the size by intended use. I don’t know how many I’ve actually created, but I recall the fun it was to examine the bolts of fleece at Joann’s to find the right pattern. One piece being patterned, the bottom piece in a solid matching color.

For my son-in-law I found a nice pattern in a style he’d like and that picked up the colors of their living room. For a new puppy coming into the family (every dog deserves its own blankie, right?), I found a cute dog-themed pattern.

When my grand-nephews were young, I checked with my nephew to find out what the boys’ hobbies and likes were, and I managed to find designs on fleece that were a good match for each of them. Turned out to be perfect Christmas gifts.

Sometimes I just had someone’s favorite color to go with. When fleece began to be available with Disney or superhero or other current-culture patterns, that made things easier for blankets for children.

I would also make fleece robes for myself. Being on the taller side, it was great to adjust for height and sleeve length.

In the early years of my relationship with Joann, it was all about sewing and making blankets. And the store was filled with lots of fabrics of all sorts. There were sewing machines for sale and sewing classes. There were always craft items – many of which were seasonal or holiday-specific – and those began to take up more space in the store, I’m guessing because of the decline in home sewing and growth of interest in crafty stuff.

My oldest son was a slender boy with long legs. Store-bought pajamas never worked. If they were long enough, they were too big elsewhere. Rather than alter them, it was just easier to get a pattern and alter that. And hence, ever so many jammies were created, in patterns that were child-chosen or at least child-approved (he wasn’t big on going to the fabric store with Mom).

I remember my younger son going through a vest phase – vests making him cooler, of course. And so I made vests, a lot of them.

For a good many years I was quite overweight and found it easier to make a few things for myself, especially for wearing to work. Back in the day, most clothing for plus-size women were in blacks, browns, navy blues and an occasional dusty-rose mother-of-the-bride kind of color.

I didn’t want anything psychedelic, but some brighter colors seemed more appropriate … and so, I made it happen.

I was never a fancy or complicated-project seamstress. My sister-in-law can make anything, and even made a parka for her son. When I retired from full-time work, I told her I wanted to learn to quilt. She told me what kind of fabric to buy and how much, and then weekend after weekend, I’d go to her home in Wenatchee to work on it, using the pattern she picked. She has four sewing machines and all the needed equipment.

As it turned out, she and her quilting buddy did all the measuring, cutting and pinning during the week, and I sewed the squares together on the weekend. Anything that needed finesse, she handled. So to say that I made the quilt would be quite a bit of resume inflation, but I did assemble much of it – and it still resides on my bed today. It’s my one-and-only homemade quilt.

There are lots of jokes out there about women, especially those of with gray hair, haunting the aisles of fabric stores. If that’s the worst thing we’re ever teased about, I can live with it. I’ve never been a fabric hoarder, but I certainly enjoyed looking among the ample supplies available at Joann, and, of course, buying fabric for whatever project was upcoming.

I know that craft items and fabric are still available elsewhere in town and that everything under the sun can be gotten online. Even so, I’m a little sad to see my neighborhood fabric store close.

But happy memories remain of the boy in his cute spaceship jammies and his brother as cool as could be in his vests. Not that I’m biased or anything.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by email at upwindsailor@comcast.net