I was saddened a couple of weeks ago when I strolled through our local Walmart and saw that they were taking out the fabric department. We have lots of stores here in the area where you can buy drapery and home decorating fabric and several small quilting shops but now the only stores with patterns, notions, and fabric are Hobby Lobby and Hancock Fabrics.
We are fortunate to have an absolutely wonderful fabric store — Mary Jo's — about an hour and a half drive from here. Here's a picture taken just inside the door:
Mary Jo's has a wide variety of fabrics including drapery, upholstery, bridal, quilting, etc. In fact, I remember being very overwhelmed the first time I went there by the vast selection. I have since learned that it's good to have some specific ideas of items that I am looking for before I go.
Here's a picture of some fabric I got the last time we were there to make a quilt for a baby girl:
Mary Jo's is located in Gastonia, NC (near Charlotte) and there are several stores nearby that husbands would find more interesting, such as Home Depot and Office Depot. So, for those who enjoy actually handling the fabric rather than ordering from a website if you are ever in the area I would definitely recommend that you plan to stop and check it out.
Becka
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on May 17th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
I was sad when they took out the sewing department of our Wal-Mart, too. And we don’t even have a Hancock’s — only Hobby Lobby sells fabric here, except for drapery/upholstery places.
Thanks for the link to Mary Jo’s!
on May 18th, 2010 at 8:47 am
Ackkkkk! No!!!! Not another place discontinuing fabrics!!!!!!!! There was a time where you could find the exact fabric you wanted in several different stores. Now I can’t even come close the the color I’m looking for let alone the color in the fabric I want.
Then again, people don’t sew anymore – most don’t even know how. It used to be cheaper to sew than to buy…. When I was a teen I sewed all my clothes because it was too expensive to buy them – even at K-mart. When my kids were younger I also sewed most of their clothes for the same reason. Now it’s the other way around unless you’re garage sale shopping.
I’ve been needing to make some curtains for our kitchen for a couple of years and have yet to even come close to what I’m looking for around here. Maybe we’ll have to make a trip up to Mary Jo’s.
on May 19th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Here they said they were taking it out, but it’s been over a year and it’s still here!
on May 20th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Our WM (Fairbanks, AK) still has a fabric department, and I suspect it will be here for a while since the only other “discount” fabric store we have is JoAnn. We do have a couple of quilting stores with beautiful, but expensive, fabric.
On my recent trip to Greenville I made a trip to Mary Jo’s. A must-do trip for both my mother and myself.
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