[devchix]

There's another store with a long history that I fear will not survive the ruthless dismantling of the brick and mortar stores: WAWAK Sewing Supplies, they sell buttons, button-hole maker, zippers, D-rings, and probably the largest inventory of German-made threads.

Every time I go into a Joanne's it's more and more like a junk hobby shop, and not a nice one. Aisles are dimly lit, you can't see the merchandise, fabrics are stashed in disorderly piles, marked down things at the front; the people who work there aren't sewists and so can't really answer when to use this thing instead of that thing for a particular application. It's never a nice shopping experience. I would rather they had a third of the inventory, but better quality, and the option of buying stuff to get it delivered there.

I'm sad that we're no longer a maker society, there's so much skills and craft that are being lost, perhaps irrevocably. Seems like anytime I go in search for how to do a thing, the first thing I find is something to buy.