Perversly, instead of running to take advantage of sales, the news of Joann closing inspired me to dig into my stash and make projects from what I have on hand. I started the crochet for this shirt last year. It’s made of 100 year old cotton thread. I’ve had the jersey for at least 5 years. I finally finished the blouse yesterday and I love how it came out.
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It’s lovely!
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I love it. The yellow at the top really stands out and would make it nice for the hot days of summer.
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This is such a great warm weather top! While I admit to being a bit panicked about the loss of JoAnn in my area, I am also looking forward to shopping my stash even harder than I have been.
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What a lovely stash buster! The match of the fabric and the cotton thread is phenomenal. Looks amazing!
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This turned out lovely! And I’m not in the least surprised that you added the stellar touch of 100 year old cotton thread to this! 
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Love, love, love this top! The crochet is so delicate! It is perfectly paired with that fabric.
PS - I totally agree on your JoAnn’s reaction. I’ve really doubled down on buying less in response. (The sinkhole currently plaguing Rt 80 in NJ is also conveniently located between me and my local JoAnn’s, so that’s also helping! 
)
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Joann is the only garment-fabric store in my city, though we do have a couple of great local quilt shops. But some of my friends are already planning annual girls trips to fabric-shopping destinations. The loss of Joann makes me sad, but for now, I will depend on my stash and thrifts. Which is not totally different than usual.
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We have one indie fabric store that sells garment fabric (with the exception of one quilting cotton source that has some polar fleece) and it is pretty small and it’s fabric quite a bit more costly for the obvious reasons of scale, but also their fabrics are all of high quality. I would say that local thrifting is pretty poor around here, too, for most things. Unless some of our local stores expand or we get new ones to fill the hole left by JoAnn in several categories, it’s going to be pretty grim around here! Luckily, I can keep myself pretty busy with stash. 
But, I think this means finding things to make based on stash vs deciding to make a thing and shopping stash first. Not a bad thing, but a different thing.
I noticed when I was on the Michael’s app this weekend, that they have a “JoAnn Customers” category on one of the menus! It advertised their fabric and sewing stuff, but I think that’s almost exclusively online. And now that I’ve typed this, I remember we do have a Hobby Lobby, but I won’t shop there and have never been inside the store beyond the registers to return a gift, so I don’t know if they carry garment fabric.
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The day I found out about Joann closing, I told my sister I’d quit sewing before I went to the Hobby Lobby here. Fortunately, I have amazing thrift stores, and most of my projects are the matching stash to a project rather than matching a project to stash variety. But I love being able to pick up notions and tools, interfacing, linings, whatever, as needed. It’ll be different.
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I’m kind of hoping that the indie I mentioned finds a way to expand. I think they would have to move out of downtown and I don’t know how feasible a move is for them. They’re also the anti-HL in most ways so I would love to be able to support them more.
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That label IS lovely!!
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It sounds like it could be a great opportunity for them if they could make it work. Maybe a small 2nd location would be a workaround if they could find the real estate.
That pattern at the top is so gorgeous!
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Thanks! I crocheted the yoke without a pattern, but the whole idea for the shirt was inspired by filet crochet yokes for corset covers from the 19-teens. The crochet was much finer, but the Greek key pattern showed up a good bit in filet lace insertions from that time.
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