Thoughts on the State of the Sewing Industry

Living here in the sticks, as I do, does not give me a good sense of what is happening in the sewing and crafting industry much beyond quilting. We have a Joanns and a Hobby Lobby, but neither of them carries a wide selection of apparel fabric. I had the same issue when I was a knitting designer. By the time “new” yarns made it to our area, they were already out of date. It’s a frustrating position to be in when one’s business depends on knowing what is happening in the rest of the world.

Traveling to the big city (Seattle) gives me an opportunity to do a couple of things. One is to go shopping at Nordstrom, Macy’s, and in the Liz Claiborne department at Penneys. If DD#2 is with me, she provides a running commentary on current trends in fashion and fabrication. (She pointed out all the hot pink this spring and said, “Someone must be reading your blog.” 😂) I might not wear some of these items, like boiler suits, but I can appreciate the styling.

I also have a chance to visit the larger Joann Fabrics stores to see what current stock looks like, because our store is basically a glorified Dollar General at this point. The Joanns near Tacoma Mall is a good one for checking out apparel fabric. Not all of the stores carry a wide selection, but that one does, and the spring fabrics have arrived. I saw lots of bolts of double-brushed polyester. Someone needs to tell Joanns buyers that DBP has a soft hand, yes, but it is way too hot to be wearing in the spring and summer. It doesn’t breathe. I saw only a couple of bolts of rayon spandex knits, which are nicer for warm weather as rayon does breathe. There is more to choosing fabric than color and feel.

[I am hearing buzz that Joanns may declare bankruptcy soon. Their stock price is so low it may get them delisted from the stock exchange. Stay tuned.]

The Walmart remnant racks I visited along the way were disappointing. I fear Walmart has decided the racks don’t make economic sense because they are being eliminated or downsized in most stores. On a related note, I went to a Walmart near Puyallup that was so spotless and organized, you could have eaten off the floors. The employees were all smiling and pleasant. I felt like I had been transported to another planet. I commented to one of the floor managers that it was a pleasure to shop in that store, and she thanked me and said it was all due to their store managers fostering a sense of pride and high morale among the employees. Wow. How sad that I should be surprised by that.

Back to sewing. This is some of the fabric I did buy:

The fabric on the left is a rayon spandex from Joanns. On the right is the last of the chicken fabric from Amanda’s Bundles (at Sew Expo).

I also bought these two fabrics from Amanda’s Bundles:

The top fabric is a gorgeous sweatshirt fleece. They were selling this fabric in a dozen different prints and it was flying off the shelves. Mine is destined to be a hoodie of some sort. The bottom fabric is one of their “peached performance knits.” This one is textured and foiled. I also bought some PPK black and in navy blue. The PPK pairs well with their sweatshirt knits and they had several hoodies on display incorporating both. The PPK is also what I’ve used to make socks on the serger.

Some other observations from the show:

  • The show seemed smaller than last year. Granted, I’ve only been to two, but there were definitely fewer vendors. Some vendors who were there last year were absent this year. I also heard from students that attendance was down. Show organizers did try a new system for classes this year. I don’t know if that had an impact or if the changes I saw were due to other factors. I suspect that, despite government assurances that there is no inflation, the economy kept a lot of people away this year. Traveling is not cheap.

  • There were a lot of vendors selling what I would call “Asian textiles”—batiks, kimono fabrics, etc. The number of quilt fabric vendors was down. Vogue Fabrics, Billie’s Designer Fabrics, and Amanda’s Bundles were the only apparel fabric vendors.

  • The bagmakers were having a day. Klum House was there, as well as Lauren Mormino (More Me Know). I was getting the itch to sew some bags just from walking around the vendor floor.

  • The entire show felt much more subdued than last year. That could be due to the fact that the 2023 show was the first to be held in person after two years of being online only due to the pandemic. Or perhaps this year felt different to me being a teacher rather than a student.

My overall sense is that it is getting harder and harder to make these kinds of shows profitable, and that will continue to be the case going forward. (Knitter’s Magazine went out of business and took all of the Stitches events with it.) I’m also keeping one eye on what the machine manufacturers are doing, particularly Bernina. Bernina seems to be hitting this “use a serger for quilting” idea pretty hard—this video with Gail Yellen and Amanda Murphy came out yesterday—and just this morning, I saw a Bernina ad in my Facebook feed indicating that Bernina is now selling select machines ONLINE. That is a major departure from their current system of selling only through dealers and makes me wonder if they are feeling the pinch, too. What happens when you’ve saturated the market for expensive machines?

Are we at a tipping point? Part of me thinks that five years from now, we may be reminiscing about the days when we could buy a huge variety of fabric and sewing notions and travel to conferences to take classes. Maybe we’ll even be back to cutting up old clothing to make quilts.

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Joe Vechiarelli was at Sew Expo again this year, and he graciously spent a few minutes with me discussing bust darts. I was walking through the vendor hall on Wednesday as he and his employees were setting up the French European booth, so I stopped and asked my question. He confirmed my suspicions that the horizontal bust dart shapes the fabric differently; he said that a bust dart in that position provides the greatest amount of extra fabric for fuller busts. I will be retracing my patterns as I make them to adjust accordingly.

Also—laugh with me—I ended up being overdressed for the party on Saturday night. I was anticipating something like last year’s Bernina party and this one felt more like a dance in the high school gym. I stayed for a bit and chatted and ate snacks, but I ended up leaving before the fashion show started. (The fashion show featured items made from materials purchased at previous Sew Expo events, so I didn’t qualify.) Oh, well. I will wear my dress for Christmas.