On why I will always be mad that you were forced to close

JoAnn Fabrics was forced to close down on May 30, 2025. Forced to close because it didn’t go out of business, it was bought up by greedy private equity firms, squeezed for every drop it had, enshittified, and then when it was no longer useful to its PE overlords, they dumped it with zero consideration for the massive impact its closure would have.

I am writing this elegy for JoAnn’s over a year after its closure because I am still mad that it is gone. Not sad, genuinely MAD. I recognize JoAnn’s was a bit of a shadow of its former self, it had lost its focus, and its proverbial lunch was being eaten by online shopping. Had the chain overexpanded? Yes. Was it still doing enough business to sustain itself in some form though? My understanding is yes, it was, and it really should still be here.

(I’m not an economist and don’t pretend to be one. I’m not here to argue the numbers about JoAnn’s economic viability. All that matters is that the people that bought it up decided it just wasn’t ENOUGH, and instead of trying to make it work in some new way, they just unceremoniously dumped a retail chain that had been the cornerstone for a lot of crafters all around the United States for decades, one that has no replacement.)

In any case.

JoAnns largely catered to, and was shopped by, women. So this story was relegated to the “women’s issues” pile and largely ignored. Truly, there was little to no genuine discourse about why losing JoAnns is a fucking travesty and how disruptive not having one nearby is going to be for thousands if not millions of people.

Yes, we all should support our smaller local quilt shops, fabric outlets and crafting stores. If one exists near you, that is. And if they have what you need. That is always the gold standard.

The reality is that JoAnns occupied a unique place in the fabric of American crafter life. It had a wide range of different supplies in its aisles, for knitting and crocheting it had some very good basics and staple items. If you needed a special hook or needle size, they had it, and you could swing by and pick one up on your lunch break. Truly it was a haven for sewists of all kinds – hobbyists could pick through their fleece sections, garment makers could actually feel the texture and drape of garment fabrics, quilters could find inspiration from the cottons along the wall, and people needing to redo a dining room chair or whip up a curtain would find plenty to work with in the upholstery section. Was it the world’s biggest selection of these things? No. But it was enough for a lot of us.

Were you in the middle of a project and found out you really needed a different sewing needle, or a different size zipper? Chances are there was a JoAnn’s within driving distance, it was a quick excursion to go and get what you need, and resume making whatever you needed.

How much I loved going through the remnants bin when I was a broke college student to find interesting scraps to work with. How much I loved showing my daughter how to do that too, to find fun ideas to make into Halloween costumes – one year I hit the jackpot with nearly a yard of blue and green paillette fabric, and with a few basic stitches I turned that scrap into a mermaid dress my daughter proudly wore for Halloween and dress-up for years and years. How great it was to wander the much-derided wacky flannels, and go “that would make a fun set of pajamas” almost as if being dared to do it. And then go what the heck, why not.

For me, wandering the JoAnn aisles with my mom was a treasured time. She and I would ooh and aah over quilting cottons and garment fabrics, and she taught me how to leaf through a pattern catelog in that quiet table in the back, and find the pattern in the cabinet and check the requirements. How many conversations over the cutting table over the years I had with sewists with so much more experience than me, just casually sharing their wisdom about what to know about the fabric I was looking at, or the project I was mulling over. A lot of women had those moments in those stores, it was a space for that to happen. It felt very special that places like that still existed for us to slow down and learn old crafts.

I am always going to be mad that JoAnns is gone, and will hope against hope someone will figure out a way for a similar retail chain to take its place. That the practical skills of sewing and mending and making are becoming rarer and rarer, and harder and harder to find the places where not only the materials but the knowledge is easily shared, could not be coming at a worse time, when we are increasingly socially isolated and practical skills are becoming unaffordable. Most baby boomer women in the US can easily remember growing up and learning to sew their own clothes - maybe not their entire wardrobe, but certainly important pieces at the very lease. Gen X had much-derided home ec, and as an older Millennial I was one of the last years that also had that class. And then it was gone - who needs to sew anymore, just buy new clothes, right?

Does everyone need to know how to make their own garment from scratch anymore? No, certainly not. Same with rebuilding the engine of your car or starting a garden from seed. But the basics on how to repair something you’ve invested in - whether its mending a hole your clothing, replacing a windshield wiper, making a basic meal - these are all basic skills that can be a gateway into much bigger worlds if you so desire. But more importantly, they give you true ownership over basic things in your life: The things you wear, the vehicles you drive, the food you eat.

We lose our agency when we sacrifice our abilities. I don’t ever advocate for a return to drudgery, but we’ve so quickly lost so many skills it’s honestly alarming. And the loss of spaces like hobby shops, RadioShack, and now JoAnns - how can people learn to fix and truly own their own things if there’s no way to get repair materials and talk to other people about how to make the repair?