When Hancock Fabrics shut its stores in 2016, a lot of Louisiana sewists lost the one place in town that carried zippers, interfacing, and a drawer full of pattern envelopes. The machines at home kept running, but the errands got longer.
Today the thread and buttons come from independent shops spread from Ruston to Abita Springs, and many of them offer classes and machine repair the old chain never did. Here are nine that give people a real reason to load up the car.
1. The Fabric Shop, Ruston, LA
Good light matters more than most shoppers admit, and at 100 W Park Ave in downtown Ruston, the lighting is part of the appeal. Colors read true under it, so matching a thread to a print happens at the counter instead of in the parking lot.
The shop covers three kinds of sewing at once. Embroidery supplies share space with quilting cottons and garment-making materials, which means a quilter and a dressmaker can arrive in the same car and both leave with something…