Joann, who?

Roughly a month ago, craft and fabric retail giant Joann announced that it would be shuttering all of its stores for good. The announcement came after the company filed for bankruptcy in January, the second time it had done so in less than a year.

Following the announcement, posts abounded on social media mourning the chain’s closing. Crafters expressed sadness, anger and confusion. Sewists wondered where they would buy fabric once Joann was no longer an option.

When asked about the most popular items at the store, a representative from the Joann store in Wausau said that their selections seem to sell pretty evenly across the board, with no particular craft dominating sales over the others.

“I think what people are mostly gonna miss is fleece,” the spokesperson said, “but also just a different variety of fabrics in general for a price point that won’t break the bank.”

Incidentally, despite the company’s overall loss in business, the spokesperson alleged that the Wausau location’s sales have been steady and were up from last year even before the closure announcement.

The location does not yet have an official date for closure, although the representative suggested that the company has floated the end of May as a deadline for stores to get everything in order.

Of the three major craft store chains found in Wisconsin — Hobby Lobby, Michaels and Joann — proponents of Joann have claimed that it offers the best variety of fabrics for reasonable prices, including specialty fabrics like polar fleece and costume material. While Michaels is expected to expand its fabric offerings in an attempt to capture the Joann market, buyers have yet to see what exactly those offerings might be.

Instead of moving on to another chain, local craft store owners hope that crafters who previously relied on Joann will seek them out, instead.

“What happens is a lot of us little retailers belong to social media, and everyone’s saying, ‘Where are we gonna go? Where are we gonna go?’ said Mary Wilke, who owns sewing machine repair and quilt shop Sew Smart. “And I’m like, ‘There are so many small retail shops right in your community and you don’t even know about it.’ We have everything Joann does.”

“The goal is really to drive the customer to seek out these local craft stores and start supporting us, because we’re going to start disappearing, too, if we don’t see that business,” she said.

With the advent of big box stores, independent specialty shops have declined in popularity, leading many business owners to close their doors. Wilke said that quilt shops across Wisconsin have been closing at increased rates in recent years, although many of the businesses’ owners cite retirement as their excuse. Without a steady cashflow — or savings to fall back upon — maintaining even the most humble of storefronts becomes unsustainable.

“A lot of them are woman-owned, and we’re not a franchise,” said Wilke.

Joann has been a staple for cosplayers — hobbyist tailors who dress up as comic book, video game, television or movie characters — for years. Wilke said that while this niche may not find as much use from Sew Smart’s fabric offerings as a quilter might, as garments typically require hyper-specific components — zippers of certain sizes, for example — that aren’t practical to stock regularly, costume makers trend toward upcycling existing garments from thrift shops anyway and can still benefit from the store’s other services.

Such services include craft and sewing classes and sewing machine repair.

“We have a very large sewing machine part of our store, so we do a lot of sewing machine service and a lot of accessories,” Wilke said. She noted that repair requests for sewing machines bought elsewhere make up a large chunk of the store’s business.

“Our repair business is very strong, because if you go to Walmart and buy a machine for $200, there’s no warranty, there’s no guarantee, and it probably won’t last 6 months,” she said. “It’s like buying a car. You have to get it serviced yearly. Those higher-end machines do need a regular checkup once a year.”

And while a crafter accustomed to the slashed prices of big box stores might initially balk at the price tags on some of Sew Smart’s machines, Wilke noted that most customers walk away from the store with machines under $1000 — machines that they can trust to last and which include service.

“[Local craft store owners] are not getting rich off of our customers,” she said.

The higher-end machines, she explained, are not designed with the average sewist in mind. “They’re state of the art, and they do machine embroidery, and they have laser lights. They have stitch enablers. They’re pretty cool.”

Wilke also emphasized that her profits mainly go toward keeping the store running — rent, utility and labor costs. “All that money stays locally,” she said. “[Sew Smart’s employees] are going to the local grocery stores and local restaurants.”

For now, Wilke and the Sew Smart staff are trying to navigate the needs of this new market of crafters and how to accommodate them.

“Most of the customers want polar fleece, and quilt shops just aren’t prepared to add that much inventory because it adds so much bulk,” she explained.

From fabric to beads to sculpting materials, a crafter can find a craft store for their needs all over the county if they’re willing to look. And if it means they can build a lifelong relationship with their community, then the craft retailers of Marathon County are all ears about how to serve their neighbors better.