Fun Facts about Fabric Stores

For this month's fun facts I wanted to focus on something we all love. Fabric stores!  Now, when I say "we all" I'm certainly not referring to our kids or our spouses. It's possible that they don't love them quite as much as we do. 

A couple weeks ago my family was having a little day trip for spring break. I needed to make a quick stop in the fabric store (of course) and it was agreed that I would go in by myself so we could get done faster. As I was getting out of the car my 10-year-old son said, "Remember, Mom! You always go back to your first fabric idea. So maybe this time you can just skip the in-between searching part and get it over with."  Funny kid, haha.

And guess what. I didn't listen to him. And guess what else.  He was right. I ended up buying the four fabric designs that I picked up within the first two minutes of walking into the store - thirty minutes later.  

ANYWAY. Here are a few fun facts about fabric stores that we all might enjoy: 

• Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts proclaims that they were founded in 1943. But at that time they were originally a business that sold imported cheese! They later added fabric to their inventory, which sold better than the cheese. It wasn't until the 1960's when they changed their name to Jo-Ann Fabrics and then later added Crafts. 

• On Etsy there are almost 233,000 listings when I do a search for "fabric by the yard".  (10,000 of those are chevron.) 

• In 1999, Phoenix Textiles went online to test the concept of selling cut-yardage fabric directly to consumers. It was immediately successful and today that company is the world's leading online fabric store company, known as Fabric.com.  

• Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts has 175 categories of fabric available online. (I counted them myself.)

• Hobby Lobby began in a garage in Oklahoma and now has over 500 stores in 41 states. All this growth happened without carrying any long-term debt! (Let's keep that in mind on our next fabric shopping trip.) 

• There are thousands of "Fabric Stores" with pages on Facebook. 

• On the Hancock Fabric Facebook page, it is normal for their posts be shared hundreds of times. I dare you to look at their feed and not enjoy it a little bit. 

• Local fabric stores are still awesome and we can find great treasures there too. After looking online for weeks I found a specialty fabric I needed just a few miles away! 

• Fabric stores do not sell pets. My son has asked the fabric lady more than once. 

Alright, that's all our fun facts for today!  But before you leave the blog we would LOVE for you to take our little ***POLL*** that's in the right column of the blog, down below the sponsors. There are five questions so make sure you see all of them.  The poll is just for fun and nobody will know your answers. We thought it would be interesting to see if our CKC fans are as crazy-in-love with fabric as we are! Don't forget to check back in a few days too because the results will keep coming in. 

Let's Create! ~ Kristen