What happens after a beloved fabric store closes?
Email us at morningreport@marketplace.org. Well feature some responses on the air. Some craft stores have it all: painting supplies, picture frames, DIY holiday decorations and even kitchen tools. But Hancock Fabrics, as longtime customer Joanna Clark remembers the now-defunct retailer, just had fabric. And that was what she loved about it. Joanna Clark made her own wedding dress with fabric from Hancock Fabrics. It was just rows and rows of fabrics  satins and lace and tulle. It was fun to look at and imagine what these fabrics could become, she told Marketplace. Clark, who now lives in Brunswick, Georgia, grew up going to the store with her mother where theyd pick up the project fabric, thread and buttons with which she learned how to sew and quilt. It was where she bought the fabric to make her prom dress, her wedding dress and later clothes for her children. Im not a particularly good seamstress, but I wanted to be able to say that I had made my wedding dress, said Clark, who put the dress together over a weekend. Its a very simple dress, and its bright blue because that was my favorite color at the time.  She even worked at a Hancock Fabrics in Shreveport, Louisiana, for a stint when she was a young adult. She was new in town, and it was how she met friends and found community. In 2009, Clark and her daughter designed an autumn fairy Halloween costume together. I worked there part time, about 30 hours a week. And I probably spent a good bit of my paycheck back at Hancock Fabrics because I was there all the time. I did develop a bit of an antipathy to music from the 1950s because it played in the store, she said. And the thing about working in a fabric store is that no matter how many times you sweep, theres going to be dust everywhere.  The Mississippi-based chain, founded in 1957, was one of the countrys largest fabric retailers with hundreds of stores across the United States. But in 2016, following two bankruptcy filings and growing competition from stores like Michaels and Walmart, Hancock Fabrics announced it was closing its stores. (One store in Paducah, Kentucky, is privately owned by a relative of the chains owner and remains open.) In its absence, the answer for many customers has been to shop online  but not for Clark. Its just not the same. I want to feel the fabric to know how its going to drape over your shoulders or off your hip, or how is it going to swish when you move it.