(no subject)

[m_of_disguise]

My sister drove into town and had lunch with me yesterday, which was very nice. We had Coco Shrimp and gossiped for an hour, and then she dropped me back at work. It was a gorgeous day, I wish I could have skipped out and just enjoyed the weather but alas, back to the concrete bunker of my office.

Since the Captain is still on vacation and I have nothing to do, I wrote up a script for a video about making a wheel farthingale. I have not yet made a wheel farthingale, but the urge is mighty. I truly need to finish the script for the natural form hoops and get that video completed so I can have it out next weekend. Heavily uninterested in the opera gown currently, it's going to be such a chore to make. Ugh.

Stopped by the Joann's by the house hoping to find the linen I needed, and happily found they had 5 yards of it left. I bought all of it, and it will become a coif and new shift. However, someone bought up all the red thread and red embroidery floss, like literally all of it. I finally managed to find some spooled embroidery floss in the color I need for the coif in a different part of the store. I didn't even know spooled embroidery floss was a thing. I did not find the red buttonhole thread I needed to continue work on my Elizabethan bodies, so they'll have to continue to wait for a while.

I did not bring any linen to work today since I still need to finish the script for the natural form hoops, and decided to concentrate on that instead. I should have that wrapped up today and can hopefully bring in the linen tomorrow and get started on the coif.

Told M about the latest rumors of Joann's imminent bankruptcy, so he searched to see what kind of commercial loans they have out, since commercial loans are What He Does. Turns out they have a combined $1 billion in loans, and only have $19 million in cash, which he said is even worse than Bed, Bath, & Beyond's numbers before they folded. Absolutely insane, they are doomed. Buy your staple fabrics while you can. I'm going back soon to stock up on cheap muslin and gridded interfacing. 

Comments

[danabren]

Yeah, Joanns was one of those companies that was bought and then saddled with other debt, effectively guaranteeing it's destruction. What really burns my bubble is that Joanns moved into this area and aggressively drove every other fabric store out of business (including goldmine warehouses) except for the overpriced Mennonite quilters and reproduction Civil War fabric shops at Gettysburg and Intercourse.

It's just salt in the wound.

[m_of_disguise]

We still have one or two independent fabric stores in town, but there used to be a lot more. Thankfully we still have the warehouses in Dallas, otherwise we'd be stuck with nothing but Hobby Lobby once Joann's shuts down, and I won't buy from them. Hopefully once they fold, independent stores might start popping up again.

[danabren]

I can't afford to shop at independent fabric stores, since that fiasco with the cotton crop a few years ago and manufacturers never dropping the price, and wool isn't being made in the USA hardly at all any more.

And Hobby Lobby's Hammurabi Robbing Hobby can suck my left nut.

[mandie_rw]

Hoo boy, those are some dismal numbers, all right. There goes Joanns as my backup job when teaching at this private school drives me completely insane, lol! It's like when we registered at BB&B for the wedding, and when we got a couple of their gift cards I was like, we must use these IMMEDIATELY. xD Have to make sure I don't have any stray Joanns gift cards kicking around...

It really does suck how they put everybody else local out of business, though. I guess we're fortunate here in that there's a handful of quilting shops I can, like, get thread from, but really there's nothing worthwhile looking at in terms of fabric closer than NYC, and I'm far too lazy to go up there!

[m_of_disguise]

Yeah, I'm lucky that I still have the fabric warehouses in Dallas, which is about an hour away. I don't make it over there often, and they tend not to have the staples that I usually need, like interfacing or muslin, but at least I can find dress fabrics when I need them.

[brickhousewench]

Turns out they have a combined $1 billion in loans, and only have $19 million in cash, which he said is even worse than Bed, Bath, & Beyond's numbers before they folded.

Eeek! That's not a good sign for their continued health/existence!

[brickhousewench]

And it's official, they've filed for Bankruptcy.

https://apnews.com/article/joann-bankruptcy-chapter-11-filing-75093d4032907c59a45e472dd4e23229