As I drove to work one morning last week, my mind wandered to the growing list of local fabric and yarn stores in this area that have closed over the past few years. Just last week another yarn shop shut their doors, about a year after the last one in my “shopping zone” closed.
I’m often reminded of these things when I pass a road that would take me to this store or that one. In fact, when I’m daydreaming (not paying attention) on the drive home from work, I sometimes mindlessly drive past my exit and head toward the exit where the Joann’s store used to be in my end of town; until I remember that it has been gone for almost a year.
I’ve written a few blog posts about the impact of Amazon pricing on crafters who do shows, and I have mentioned a couple of times my sympathy for small businesses and the amount of sales that they need to generate on a daily basis just to keep their head above water. Lately, all of that has been on my mind as I contemplate the future for crafters and artists and other creatives.
I sometimes wonder if the pressures in society today might nudge us back to a time when we found craft supplies in objects around our houses, or in nature. We made simple creations, and they didn’t cost handfuls of money. In some ways, we had a deeper sense of accomplishment, realizing that our creativity went beyond putting pre-made items into a nice arrangement. It included a deep satisfaction around our ingenuity in sourcing our supplies from things that were no longer useful, but could now be repurposed into something fun, whimsical or beautiful.
In the midst of my musing on this issue, I attended an event featuring National Geographic photographer Cristina Mittermeier. Her passion is conservation and is focused largely on saving the oceans. While the evidence of the harm that endless consumption has created was not new information for me, it was still stark and upsetting to see the continuing – and growing – impact on wildlife, plant life and the planet by our endless need to consume more STUFF!
(summary video posted at the bottom of this post to introduce you to her work)
Back to the challenges for the crafting world, I will always have deep sympathy for business owners that make the difficult decision to close the doors on a shop that they had put their heart and soul into for any amount of time. Right now, the market overall is in a lot of turmoil. Starbucks recently announced a trimming of around 1% of their storefront locations, which will mean around 500 to 600 coffee shops will be shut down. The CEO is talking rebranding and a strategy targeted to what they are calling “back to Starbucks“: in other words, “…[a] ‘turnaround plan’ to address underperformance, high costs, and shifting consumer habits.” It looks to me that they are narrowing their target audience to those with higher end tastes (in coffee and experience), because that demographic likely tracks with higher incomes. In fact, many are calling this a “premium pivot“.
- an informative summary of the Starbucks story
I’m not an economist, but I can look around and see things like the rising cost of gasoline, the creeping costs of subscription services (like Netflix), and the paltry options in the job market. It doesn’t take a PhD in Economics to realize that there’s at LEAST some consumer trepidation about the state of the nation’s economy and that it is ALSO impacting small business owners in niches like fabric and yarn.
Some quick checks of the high level indicators shows that consumer prices have increased by 3.3% year-over-year in March – due largely to increasing energy costs. The unemployment rate sits at 4.3% and anyone who’s been looking – even casually – for a job will tell you that there are very few opportunities available at the moment. Gasoline prices jumped 19% within the past year as well, with no end to the “pain at the pump” in sight.
It’s not hard to imagine that the tightening of the American wallet is hitting some businesses pretty hard right now. Combined with the uptick in awareness around growing yarn and fabric stashes, and the encouragement within the craft community at large to “shop your stash“, it’s not difficult to see the lengthening list of challenges for small business. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the cost of real estate is out of control.
I’m not sure what the answer is for any of these issues, and I know that one person can’t solve any of them. What I do know is that as we all navigate these and other challenges, it’s going to be increasingly important to be kind to each other; to have patience with those around us and to always take a step back (and a deep breath) when we want to complain about what WE want or what WE didn’t get (and should have).
It’s not all about us (and it never has been).
Let’s double down on our desire to bring more beauty into the world through our fiber arts, and add an extra “stitch“, “row“, “round” or “block” of kindness to all of our interactions. It may seem small, but it’s something that actually CAN start a wave of healing, one kind act or response at a time.
(C) 2026 Stitch ‘n Dish
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