When I was growing up my Mother made a lot of our clothes. After learning how to use Mom’s sewing machine I made good money in school making and selling Barbie clothes to all the local girls. My best friend through much of my childhood was a girl up the street who gave me the idea. She told me what I should make and she always got hers free. (We only had two sexes back then and for the most part it was the girls who played with dolls.)

I remember going to the fabric store with Mom many times where she bought yards of cloth, patterns (some of which are still in the drawer of Mom’s old Necchi sewing which Dad bought for her in Germany and I inherited after she died) and visiting with all the other Mothers there for the same thing. I would buy fabric remnants for pennies for my little business.

I occasionally still go the local Joann for fabric for book covers, models and other odds and ends though I do little sewing anymore except to occasionally hem a pair of pants. I have noticed that there are a lot fewer people there and they started carrying a lot of other “craft” items. Then I saw this story this morning.

https://www.wnd.com/2025/02/joann-to-close-500-of-its-800-fabric-and-craft-stores/

I have done a little looking into it and the bottom line seems to be that these days, with imports from China and elsewhere, it no longer makes sense to sew clothes. Between fabric and patterns and sewing machines and supplies it’s significantly cheaper to buy them than to make them. Besides few people learn the skill when they are young anymore so there is a steep learning curve.

While it’s good in a sense that clothes, like so many products, are much less expensive than they were when I was young in the mid-1900s there is also an undeniable and lamentable loss of what used to be a common skill… sewing and making clothes.

It’s just one more of the skills most folks took for granted 50-100 years ago that have been lost. Convenience is great but I’m not sure that trading knowledge and skill for it is.

The Librarian