07/27/2026
For all her faults, Joann was still the best. RIP Joann, we miss you every day.
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Friends, family, quilters, cosplayers, and women who own fifty plastic tubs labeled “ribbon,” we gather today to mourn the passing of Joann.
Joann was more than a craft store. She was a dimly lit maze where you could buy three yards of upholstery fabric, a bag of googly eyes, a decorative wooden chicken, and a Christmas wreath in August... all while wondering whether the single visible employee had been trapped inside the building since 2009.
She gave us coupons. So many coupons. Forty percent off one regular-priced item. Twenty percent off your entire purchase. Fifteen percent off curbside pickup. Fifty percent off a product that had already been marked up sixty percent for the specific purpose of being discounted.
Nobody ever knew what anything at Joann actually cost. The shelf said $24.99. The app said $14.99. The website said $11.99. The register said $31.47. Then Linda scanned four coupons, communed with the ancient tablet, and somehow the final price became $8.63.
Joann taught generations of Americans valuable life skills: sewing, knitting, scrapbooking, and standing in a checkout line for twenty minutes while one cashier processed a return of seventy-two individual skeins of yarn.
The fabric department was its own sovereign nation.
You took a number. You waited behind an 82 year old woman purchasing enough fleece to upholster a municipal bus. Eventually, a weary employee arrived with scissors chained to the table like a bank pen and asked, “How much?”
You said two yards. She cut two yards and fourteen inches, because fabric measurement at Joann was less of a science and more of a general vibe.
The store layout was a triumph of chaos. Thread was near the sewing machines, except for the specialty thread, which was near the beads. The beads were beside the cake-decorating supplies. The cake-decorating supplies were across from artificial flowers. The item you came for was available online only, despite the website claiming there were six in stock.
Joann was also the last refuge of seasonal merchandise. Plastic pumpkins in July. Easter eggs in January. Christmas decorations arriving sometime around Memorial Day. Every holiday slowly devoured the holiday before it until the entire front half of the store became one continuous celebration of vaguely rustic consumerism.
Yet for all her faults, Joann had dignity.
She never pretended patio furniture was a hobby supply. She did not ambush you with inspirational wall signs declaring that every home needed more faith, family, and distressed off-white paint. You could purchase embroidery floss without feeling like you had accidentally wandered into the gift shop of a megachurch.
Joann knew what she was: fabric, yarn, foam, glue, fake flowers, and several thousand varieties of tiny plastic storage box.
She was there for the grandmother making a quilt, the theater student sewing a costume at 10:30 the night before opening, the model builder desperately searching for thin wire, and the Pinterest enthusiast about to spend $140 recreating a decoration she could have purchased finished off Etsy for $18.
Was Joann efficient? No.
Was she clean? Occasionally.
Was she well staffed? Let us not speak ill of the dead.
But she was OURS.
Now, she's gone. The cutting tables stand silent. The final bolt of fleece has been measured. Somewhere, the last remaining cashier is still waiting for a manager override.
Farewell, Joann.
May your coupons never expire.
May your yarn never tangle.
And may the website finally admit that the item is not actually in stock.
7.5 "I hope the building doesn't become another Bigby or v**e shop" out of 10
