If I do a search for fabric stores here in Maryland I get mainly the few Joanns that are scattered over a large area, or upholstery shops.

For some reason it also lists Home Depot and a now defunct furniture store as being fabric stores. Also, it list some department stores that have been closed for a long time as well as Michaels and Walmart. Those department stores never had fabric and I don't know how those odd locations get on the map.

Lucky you. I took a look at Fields.

Interesting topic that you have started.

I am surprised that there are not more here in the area around DC. It is such a large and wealthy area. Certainly not a lack of disposable income here in these burbs.

I wil be interested in what others say about where they live.

Where I live, it is Joanns.

We used to have one of the very best ever fabric retailers right here in the county. They were fabulous...a fabric wonderland. Now they have been reduced to a little hole in the wall industrial park and have very, very. little of what they used to have. I used to spend a lot of time and lot of money there. I was last there a few years ago and it was just sad, sad, sad. Just for curiosity , I am going to call and see how they are operating in this stressful time and take a ride down there if they are opened. The last time I was there I bought fabric to make covers for daughters chairs. There was some garment fabric there but mostly there was a big pile of mess to sort through, like searching a trash pile, really. Had to almost untangle it to look at it. This used to be the grandest fabric store and they used to have a very nice location. Now, not so.

There is a small quilting shop.

Other than that I do declare that there is absolutely nowhere but Joanns to buy thread. The last time I was there even that was a challenge.

No shortage of fabric stores in Los Angeles. I normally shop at F&S in West L.A., but I occasionally go to the garment district downtown, but I really do not like that neighborhood. Right now, only the upholstery department is open at F&S, and so if I really needed garment fabric, I would have to go downtown☹️

Dallasannie, are you talking about G Street fabrics near Rockville? About 20 years ago my daughter lived outside DC and when we would visit her I would try to get there. There are no fabric stores near me now except Joanns and Hobby lobby.

I've talked a little about this on other threads, but I'm glad it has its own threads. OK, San Diego County, California:

Of course we have a few Joann's.

Most of our Walmarts were trying to carry some fabric, too, but during the Quarantine, most of them completely sold out of their cottons. They still have a bunch of fleece, and a few costuming fabrics. I haven't been in there for about 10 days now, but it was completely out of fat quarters as well.

I believe there may be three Yardage Towns left - there used to be around a dozen. Two are down in the South Bay - National City and Chula Vista - and the other is in Vista. Because of their distance from me, I hadn't been to one in awhile.

We now have three Hobby Lobby stores in the "north county" area. I go to either Mira Mesa or San Marcos, but there's also one in Oceanside.

Then we have a good number of quilting stores, but most focus on 100% cotton. Probably the best 2 known ones are Rosie's Calico Cupboard down in San Diego, and Quilt in a Day, which is in San Marcos but on the Carlsbad end. I haven't been to Rosie's, and haven't been to QIAD in years, when my mom and I drove out there. Closer to home, we have a shop that carries quilting cottons, but mostly it sells and repairs machines.

As for who sells machines in our area - when I was shopping for machines, I went to the one shop mentioned above, who sells a lot of different brands. Also, a Bernina dealer isn't all that far from me. If I venture out of my suburb, though, there are other stores including the Sewing Machines Plus store in San Marcos. Oh, Walmart and Joann's both sell machines, but mostly the low-end machines.

Donna

The last fabric store that I visited in person was Fermo Valli Tessuti in Rome. I think their store in Milan is better, however. I wish I were closer to these stores.

I live waaay out in the boonies in rural Missouri. However, I live about an hour from a quilting Mecca: Missouri Star Quilt Company. Lots of fabric shops there - quilt fabric, that is.

Finding fabrics for piecing, home dec and things like cos play and costumes is easier that finding something to make a dress, shirt or pants from.

And that fleece!! oh, the fleece! what horrid stuff that is!

I reluctantly, bought some last year because of a request from my little grand daughter for something special that I could not fulfill with any other fabric.

While I was buying some there was a lady buying enough to make a blanket for a large bed. As heavy as that fleece already is, she was making a double layer blanket from it, and king sized at that! Most of don't really need all that heavy of a covering. What a huge thing to put in the washing machine. I would suffocate under all of that. And, honestly two layers of anything that large need some stitching to hold them in place. What a mess!

I just don't get this fleece blanket thing with the two layers. I made one layer with a blanket binding on it. That stuff does not breath and it can make you sweat.

Joanns is over run with fleece, and more fleece. ugh!! But, rarely anything decent to sew a garment with.

Lars, you don't live close to Tessuti, but you can order from them, which would be a lot easier. I stroll through their patterns and styles but don't buy the fabric. They recently sent a newsletter with $48 a meter linen. No, thanks. I have enough of those kinds of things. I need everyday things that take. a beating and are not afraid to get dirty, washed, and dirty again. I do love their styles and patterns and also Style Arc, from Australia.

I hear of fabric venues in Australia and of Australians who used to take vacations in the island nations of the Pacific and visit fabric vendors as part of that vacation. I wonder if proximity to that part of the world has anything to do with my perception of their availability or not. Just wondering.

@littlebug zone 5 Missouri, please elaborate on Missouri Star Quilt Co.! Over the summer, I visited a couple of stores in Columbia, MO - Satin Stitches was one, and Quilt4U was the other. Both specialized in 100% cotton, as you might expect, as they are quilting stores. The fabric was beautiful. I tried to get to Love to Sew Boutique in Osage Beach, but they were only going by appointment at the time. Oh, well, maybe next summer!

Donna

Donnar: missouriquiltco.com

Thanks for the URL! It looks beautiful - but about 3+ hours from where I'm planning to settle in a year or so, after retirement. Still, if I'm on a road trip or something like that, it might be worthwhile. How about Jamestown? It's a good Amish area.

Donna

I don’t know JamesTOWN but I know JamesPORT. It’s not far from Missouri Star Quilt Company and has a heavy settlement of Mennonite and Amish.

Amish stores in Jamesport focus mainly on fine wood furniture, baked goods, and horticulture. There are also craft, candle, and antique shops which are mostly owned and operated by non-Amish. A great town to visit except on days when tour buses from the city arrive.

It looks like there may be some fabric shopping around where there are Menonite groups and others who adhere to modest dressing

Last week I watched a video about a young Menonite girl who was sewing a dress with her mother. She and she mother went fabric shopping.

This was apparently in Woolwich township in New Jersey.

The name of the video is "Hollies Dress".

I found it interesting.

It looks to me that the fabrics that they are using are synthetic fabrics. The author of the accompanying article said that they have to actually put the fabric in boiling water to set the pleats that they use in their basic dress pattern. I am sure that they did not have to do that before these plastic fabrics. They did iron the clothes, though.

I would rather iron or wear it with wrinkles than wear the fabrics that so much is made from anymore.

If you think that you might enjoy this video, here is a link.

https://thesewcialists.com/2020/06/29/how-sewing-and-religion-intersect-a-mennonite-story/It 

It was not really as much about sewing as it was about the making of the dress and it's significance in marking her transition out of childhood.

I found it interesting the contrast between the modern elements in the life of this family and the archaic elements that still persist. It seems that they persist more for the females than for the males. But, that is only my view from afar.

If you do go to this address to see this, take a look around. It is an interesting collection of sewing goodness.

You're right, @littlebug zone 5 Missouri, it's Jamesport rather than Jamestown. A friend of mine originally from Gallatin, mentioned it in a Facebook page but I just remembered it incorrectly.

Donna

We are considering a move to live near our daughter and her family. it is about 45 min from where we are right now

This town used to have both Hancocks and Joanns. Of course Hancocks went away and the Joanns closed down. I heard that it was some real estate agreement that took out the Joanns.

I have no idea where I will even buy thread after we move.

Most of America is like this... a sewing supply desert.

I was interested to hear what folks had to say as to Judys post.

Crickets, that is all I hear. Actually, I really do hear crickets because we have a lot of them in August.

Really, with a dearth of supply outlets, there can be no life for garment sewing left. Only the diehard sewist will persist. I will just stick with the bit of linen that I can get online and I don't know where to get anything else. How in the heck are you to get a spool of thread delivered? I don't want a gross of them.

I saw Michaels has a very small selection of sewing thread, very limited.

I love Fields! Haven't been there in over a year, but that's ok because I'm usually a bad kid in the candy store there. There's a Hobby Lobby out there too- but I haven't needed to resupply my Fimo in a while either.

There is a local JoAnns closer to where I live- but haven't been there in months to see what they got. And a Michaels I could check for thread... I was there recently for the Lemax Spookytown village stuff, and didn't even think to check for thread. They still had a lot of yarn though.

I was in Joanns the other day, as it is the ONLY place to buy anything at all related to using the sewing machine.

You can't even buy. a simple box of pins anymore, or machine needles at the store. They barely have any cotton fabric of any nature and there is very little thread.

The rest of the store still looks a mess and the racks are empty of just about anything.

They are selling some supplies in what looks to be by the dozen. They had things like sewing pins and a few other notions in bags of multiples. I really don't have any need for fifty bucks worth of sewing pins.

Folks talk about a resurgence in the interest of sewing. I don't think that is going to happen. After so many have tired of making Covid masks and have run out of cute little prints to sew, there is not much left in any store that is worth considering, and there are so very, very few stores to choose from.

It is just not feasible or easy to order everything online. All of those little things that we so accustomed to purchasing as needed have ceased to be there. For many, if not most, there are no outlets for sewing supplies at all.

If we survive this thing and THAT thing, I think you are going to see a lot of these machines on Craigslist. This virus has directed so much sewing energy into one avenue, but that will not sustain this old craft of sewing garments.

I think that we are about to be severely disrupted in our lives and are facing some dire, dire threats to civility. Sewing supplies may the least of our concerns.

I've been ordering from Wawak.com again. For a while their web site was not working, but it seems to be functioning fine again. I bought an extra sewing machine from them so that I can keep one in L.A. and one in Cathedral City. I have my better machine (Viking Husqvarna) in CC along with my new Brother serger that I like a lot, and I have my 30 year old serger in L.A. with my new Brother CS6000i machine, which I'm not completely used to yet. I did not want to buy a computerized machine, but it appeared that I did not have much of a choice for the price I wanted to pay. My Husqvarna is completely manual, and I prefer that. It is also much better at sewing thick layers and heavy fabrics.

Anyway, when I ordered the new sewing machine, I stocked up on some other things that I needed, such as thread, needles, pins, etc. I also bought replacement knives for my old serger, which they are still available.