By Shelli Ethier
It’s the end of an era, the end of an icon: Joann, formerly known as Jo-Ann Fabrics, closed its last local store on May 28.
The sound of the closing doors at 9999 University Ave. was bittersweet. The last few months were rough for employees, like me, and even though we never wanted the company to close, the end of the process was a relief. We’d spent months answering the question, “Where will I buy fabric now?”
A few other big-box stores sell a smattering of fabrics, but none of them rival Joann’s array of home décor, apparel, fleeces and flannels. Local quilters can still find at least seven quilt stores within a 25-mile radius of downtown Des Moines, but their inventories are more specialized and none stay open in the evenings. You wouldn’t believe how many frazzled parents came into Joann after 8 p.m. on a Tuesday to buy the two things their kid needed to make a tote bag or pajama pants for a school project that was due the next morning.
I was a student myself, just 14 and a half years old with a fresh work permit, when I got my first job at House of Fabrics in Tracy, California. I remember walking down the aisles and running my hand across the fabrics that had been draped over the ends of the bolts. I remember buying knit ribbing, a tubular fabric for sweatshirt hems and cuffs, and thinking how it could make a great miniskirt without any sewing. (I wore it only once.) I still have House of Fabric-branded buttons and thread, including some that still have their price tags.
The history of Joann started in 1943 with two families who’d fled Germany and settled in Cleveland, Ohio. The Reichs and Rohrbachs teamed up to open the Cleveland Fabric Shop, which was renamed Jo-Ann Fabrics 20 years later to honor two of the founding families’ daughters, Joan and Jackie Ann.
By 1969 the company had 169 stores. It went public in 1976 and was known on the New York Stock Exchange as Fabri-Centers of America, Inc. In the 1990s, the company acquired both House of Fabrics and Clothworld, a chain with 340 stories in the South. By the time Joann turned 60, in 2003, it oversaw more than 20,000 employees in more than 900 stores that sold materials for all manner of crafts and hobbies.
But economic fluctuations, the decline of home economics classes and the rise of fast fashion started to fray the company’s success. At the end of 2023, Joann filed for bankruptcy and announced plans to close 500 of its approximately 800 stores nationwide.
The downsizing enabled Joann to operate till early 2025, when a second bankruptcy was imminent. To maintain its legacy brand and a share of the market, Joann opted to close two-thirds of its remaining stores to help the company attract a buyer. Unfortunately, the highest bidder chose to shut down operations and began closing the last stores in early March.
That wasn’t just the end of Joann. It was the end of Clothworld, House of Fabrics, the Cleveland Fabric Shop and all the other fabric stores that were part of Joann’s corporate patchwork.
When the last local store closed, we didn’t just lose a big-box retailer, we lost an employer, a meeting place and creative space to swap ideas. The big space echoed after we emptied it out, but the memories of the aisles and aisles of colorful choices will live on in every crafter’s heart. That creative love can never be lost.
Shelli Ethier is an accounting associate for Business Publications Corp., which publishes dsm magazine. She worked part-time for Joann for 3 years and continues to make quilts and fabric art.
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