I used love buying the Michales brand Loops & Thread when it used to be $3.99 and you had so many colours available, it was almost the whole back wall. Now, every time I go there’s barely any colours available even when I go on stock days :(
My local Michael’s has the absolute worst yarn section. They chopped the already small section in half and put in a fabric aisle that is barely utilized.
I was wondering if I was the only person who noticed that! I ended up driving out to a huge one praying for better luck and they still only had the same 20 colours of awful scratchy acrylic and tiny, expensive balls of cotton. Even their online selection is getting sparse :(
Happening in Australia too. Big W always had an excellent range and good prices, but now just very basic colours and cost increases, same as other stores.
They got rid of basically everything except basic acrylics at my local :( But, Spotlight has started stocking the Patons Sierra, which is nice, and I could only find at Big W in person
It’s almost not worth it to go to my local Michaels anymore. The yarn section has shrunk to two isles of almost empty bins. It’s almost all variegated worsted weight acrylics. No variety at all and even what’s there is very limited quantity. I went in the other day for a hook because I’d misplaced one of mine. They barely had any and nothing in the size I needed. It feels like the whole store has been taken over by overpriced decor and cricut products.
The Michael’s near me almost never has any crochet hooks in stock. They do almost always have a good selection of knitting needles though, which I find interesting
My friends and I were chatting yesterday and there needs to be a mid-line option between three crappy aisles and Michael’s and $50 a skein local yarn stores.
Can we get a nice mid-priced store please?
I have no LYS in my area, and only sad selections at the box stores around here. I love some of the yarns I see posted here on the various yarn craft subs, but cannot bring myself to try buying online if I haven't touched a brand in person before. I'm horribly picky about texture, and if it's ick to me I can't even bring myself to work with it for someone else. My next step is to just re-home an alpaca or six to my backyard and tell Mr. Things it's for lawn care purposes to save us mowing!
Just to add on, it can also be cheaper to buy directly from the brand! My favorite is Premier and it will be often a couple of dollars cheaper than if I were to buy it at Micheals or Joann’s
I have to go to bigger town just to get better selection. Fred Meyers has nothing. Walmart is tiny, barely a quarter shelf. I got Michels or JoAnns, and my local ones doesn't have much
Same. I don't like looking online because sometimes the colors are a little different. And we all know color names are not always helpful. I also need to feel the yarn. Honestly, for small projects, I've shopped thrift stores. It's very hit or miss, but it's an option
Where i live same has been happening at the big stores. But....at rhe same time there are now 5 relatively new small high end yarn boutiques that have opened up. They have wonderful stuff , expensive mind you. Great selections. They are doing really well, and im addicted
The Hobby Lobby near me replaced like 3 aisles with that stupid aesthetic home decor crap, and most of it is metal artwork. What kind of hobby is that catering to, house flipping?? BRING MY YARN BACK 😡😡😡
The HL near me too did the same thing. What was once 5 isles of all different types of yarn went to 3, and now it’s down to 2. And it was replaced with all the home decor stuff. How many cow pillows and pictures does one house need?!?
Y'know, I have rather poor memory. I went to a Michaels recently that was having 30% off all yarn, one I'd frequented since I was a child. They had barely anything though, and I just that I was remembering wrong. Glad to know I'm not actually crazy, this time.
The local Joanns though changed a lot of their yarn to this big fancy wall display, so it looks like there's a lot of it.
I've noticed it too, every craft store around me has had their yarn section cut in half it feels like. I like making bigger or more yardage intensive projects too, but I can't justify 15-25$ skeins from my lys when I need 6-10 of them. That and my lys always has someone follow me around like a hawk as if I'm gonna start shoving things in my pockets, because, idk, I'm not 60yo I guess? But I hate ordering online without feeling anything, I'm super sensitive, even 'soft' wools leave me feeling like my skin has been scrubbed with a steel sponge.
Yes! I have the same experience when I go to my lys. Ask me what I’m making, snort when I say I don’t have a particular crochet project in mind, and watch me like a hawk. I feel like I need to have my hands visible at all times.
The Michaels in my area isn't like that for me. They have about 2-3 isles of yarn plus the yarn they have on sale in the middle of the lanes. It's quite a bit. The Walmart in my area has about 1.5 isles worth of yarn. Maybe it's based on where you live? To give some context, I live in Canada
My town just opened up a brand new Michaels and i was desperately hoping they would have a semi decent yarn aisle…. Its one aisle with next to no options.
Back to hobby lobby i go 🙄 they have two aisles
In recent years I've been mostly getting my yarn at Walmart or online. But I did notice that there seemed to be a smaller yarn selection at Walmart than there used to be.
I live in what probably amounts to the 3rd largest city in my state and the yarn selection still isn't great. Our Michaels has 2 full aisles with mostly variegated colors but a handful of solids...mostly in acrylic. Joannes is like 3 and a half isles and, again, mostly acrylic. No idea about Hobby Lobby. That is a hill I will absolutely die on. I've been trying to find more cotton yarns for towels and hot pads with disappointing results. The acrylic yarns are cheaper but they just don't have the absorbency and heat resistance I need.
I used to not go to Hobby Lobby. But I needed a particular type of yarn (fur-like) and that was the only place in town that had it.
My crafty pagan friend and I finally admitted to each other that we sometimes end up going to hobby lobby for yarn. It was like admitting that we pick our noses and don’t always wash our hands. A guilty thing that we wouldn’t want to get caught doing. No excuse for it, other than being nervous trying to get yarn online.
It gets worse when the color you're using for a project gets discontinued. Just made a yarn purchase online for a project I'm working because the yarn maker of the yarn I'm using has been discontinuing colors at what feels like a fast pace.
Mine the size of the section is okay, an aisle or two at least but I’m a fiber snob and it’s all synthetic except a tiny section of cotton. Even the natural/wool section are like 20% wool 80% synthetic. I don’t need fancy yarns but I’m to a point where I don’t do plastic. I’m fortunate to be in a position to afford the options at my LYS (though for blanket quantities I’d definitely need to stick to their cheapest options). But honestly it’s just meant turning to online shopping, which I don’t prefer since you can’t see the colors and feel the yarn in person. Even the same fibers can feel so different - one cotton will be rough and good for a dish towel and the next will be soft as a cloud and perfect for a baby blanket and there’s no way to tell without seeing it in store.
I'm glad it's not just my imagination. Just came back from a frustrating trip to Micheals (Canada). The yarn section has shrunk since the last time I was there (about 6 months ago) and it seems the big thing (literally) right now is big, chunky yarns. Two of the three aisles are gigantic skeins of chunky yarns. I could only find one brand of sock or fingering weight yarn and all of them were variegated. I needed just one solid colour. Also, most of the yarns I was interested in had only 1 or 2 skeins left and colour choices were limited.
The offerings at Michaels are abysmal. It was extremely disappointing. Guess online ordering will be the thing for me now for most projects. LYS are great but not always the greatest destination when your budget is limited.
Omg what if we have to start USING ONLY WHAT WE HAVE!!!! I'm not ready.
My stash will only keep me going for 2 years. NOT LONG ENOUGH! We all must go buy more yarn before it disappears.
Yarn preppers!!
Got to get to work on that SABLE stash!
Forget food storage, I'm building up my yarn storage!
😳 🤣
The horror!!!!!
Weird because it seems fiber arts is becoming bigger than ever!
Demand goes up + supply goes down = price increase to stuff the corporations’ pocketbooks.
I used love buying the Michales brand Loops & Thread when it used to be $3.99 and you had so many colours available, it was almost the whole back wall. Now, every time I go there’s barely any colours available even when I go on stock days :(
My local Michael’s has the absolute worst yarn section. They chopped the already small section in half and put in a fabric aisle that is barely utilized.
they had a sock yarn as well and they discontinued it so now they only stock paton, which is way more expensive for a lot less :/
Hobbycraft here in the UK has done a similar thing, it used to have so much, now the isles have been taken over by cricut 🙄
I was wondering if I was the only person who noticed that! I ended up driving out to a huge one praying for better luck and they still only had the same 20 colours of awful scratchy acrylic and tiny, expensive balls of cotton. Even their online selection is getting sparse :(
Tell me a about it, the best one there is women’s institute that’s always on 3 for two. But what if I just want a generic hayfield bonus …
Happening in Australia too. Big W always had an excellent range and good prices, but now just very basic colours and cost increases, same as other stores.
They got rid of basically everything except basic acrylics at my local :( But, Spotlight has started stocking the Patons Sierra, which is nice, and I could only find at Big W in person
It’s almost not worth it to go to my local Michaels anymore. The yarn section has shrunk to two isles of almost empty bins. It’s almost all variegated worsted weight acrylics. No variety at all and even what’s there is very limited quantity. I went in the other day for a hook because I’d misplaced one of mine. They barely had any and nothing in the size I needed. It feels like the whole store has been taken over by overpriced decor and cricut products.
The Michael’s near me almost never has any crochet hooks in stock. They do almost always have a good selection of knitting needles though, which I find interesting
My friends and I were chatting yesterday and there needs to be a mid-line option between three crappy aisles and Michael’s and $50 a skein local yarn stores. Can we get a nice mid-priced store please?
I have no LYS in my area, and only sad selections at the box stores around here. I love some of the yarns I see posted here on the various yarn craft subs, but cannot bring myself to try buying online if I haven't touched a brand in person before. I'm horribly picky about texture, and if it's ick to me I can't even bring myself to work with it for someone else. My next step is to just re-home an alpaca or six to my backyard and tell Mr. Things it's for lawn care purposes to save us mowing!
That's the.one downside to buying online that keeps me from buying online all the time : the feel of the yarn.
Even online it seems skimpy
You need to buy direct from the brand online. I always do well at lion brand.
Just to add on, it can also be cheaper to buy directly from the brand! My favorite is Premier and it will be often a couple of dollars cheaper than if I were to buy it at Micheals or Joann’s
I have to go to bigger town just to get better selection. Fred Meyers has nothing. Walmart is tiny, barely a quarter shelf. I got Michels or JoAnns, and my local ones doesn't have much
Same. I don't like looking online because sometimes the colors are a little different. And we all know color names are not always helpful. I also need to feel the yarn. Honestly, for small projects, I've shopped thrift stores. It's very hit or miss, but it's an option
Where i live same has been happening at the big stores. But....at rhe same time there are now 5 relatively new small high end yarn boutiques that have opened up. They have wonderful stuff , expensive mind you. Great selections. They are doing really well, and im addicted
The Hobby Lobby near me replaced like 3 aisles with that stupid aesthetic home decor crap, and most of it is metal artwork. What kind of hobby is that catering to, house flipping?? BRING MY YARN BACK 😡😡😡
The HL near me too did the same thing. What was once 5 isles of all different types of yarn went to 3, and now it’s down to 2. And it was replaced with all the home decor stuff. How many cow pillows and pictures does one house need?!?
Yeah Joann's closed and the selection at Michaels is dire.
Y'know, I have rather poor memory. I went to a Michaels recently that was having 30% off all yarn, one I'd frequented since I was a child. They had barely anything though, and I just that I was remembering wrong. Glad to know I'm not actually crazy, this time. The local Joanns though changed a lot of their yarn to this big fancy wall display, so it looks like there's a lot of it.
It may be because they don't carry a lot of one color/dye lot at a time. It forces most of us to order from Herrschner's, etc.
I've noticed it too, every craft store around me has had their yarn section cut in half it feels like. I like making bigger or more yardage intensive projects too, but I can't justify 15-25$ skeins from my lys when I need 6-10 of them. That and my lys always has someone follow me around like a hawk as if I'm gonna start shoving things in my pockets, because, idk, I'm not 60yo I guess? But I hate ordering online without feeling anything, I'm super sensitive, even 'soft' wools leave me feeling like my skin has been scrubbed with a steel sponge.
Yes! I have the same experience when I go to my lys. Ask me what I’m making, snort when I say I don’t have a particular crochet project in mind, and watch me like a hawk. I feel like I need to have my hands visible at all times.
The Michaels in my area isn't like that for me. They have about 2-3 isles of yarn plus the yarn they have on sale in the middle of the lanes. It's quite a bit. The Walmart in my area has about 1.5 isles worth of yarn. Maybe it's based on where you live? To give some context, I live in Canada
Damnit, reasons to move to Canada keep getting better every day.
In the Netherlands as well! There are less physical stores to buy yarn. However plenty can be bought online for a (sometimes even better) price.
My town just opened up a brand new Michaels and i was desperately hoping they would have a semi decent yarn aisle…. Its one aisle with next to no options. Back to hobby lobby i go 🙄 they have two aisles
In recent years I've been mostly getting my yarn at Walmart or online. But I did notice that there seemed to be a smaller yarn selection at Walmart than there used to be.
I live in what probably amounts to the 3rd largest city in my state and the yarn selection still isn't great. Our Michaels has 2 full aisles with mostly variegated colors but a handful of solids...mostly in acrylic. Joannes is like 3 and a half isles and, again, mostly acrylic. No idea about Hobby Lobby. That is a hill I will absolutely die on. I've been trying to find more cotton yarns for towels and hot pads with disappointing results. The acrylic yarns are cheaper but they just don't have the absorbency and heat resistance I need.
I used to not go to Hobby Lobby. But I needed a particular type of yarn (fur-like) and that was the only place in town that had it. My crafty pagan friend and I finally admitted to each other that we sometimes end up going to hobby lobby for yarn. It was like admitting that we pick our noses and don’t always wash our hands. A guilty thing that we wouldn’t want to get caught doing. No excuse for it, other than being nervous trying to get yarn online.
Meijer!
It gets worse when the color you're using for a project gets discontinued. Just made a yarn purchase online for a project I'm working because the yarn maker of the yarn I'm using has been discontinuing colors at what feels like a fast pace.
Mine the size of the section is okay, an aisle or two at least but I’m a fiber snob and it’s all synthetic except a tiny section of cotton. Even the natural/wool section are like 20% wool 80% synthetic. I don’t need fancy yarns but I’m to a point where I don’t do plastic. I’m fortunate to be in a position to afford the options at my LYS (though for blanket quantities I’d definitely need to stick to their cheapest options). But honestly it’s just meant turning to online shopping, which I don’t prefer since you can’t see the colors and feel the yarn in person. Even the same fibers can feel so different - one cotton will be rough and good for a dish towel and the next will be soft as a cloud and perfect for a baby blanket and there’s no way to tell without seeing it in store.
I'm glad it's not just my imagination. Just came back from a frustrating trip to Micheals (Canada). The yarn section has shrunk since the last time I was there (about 6 months ago) and it seems the big thing (literally) right now is big, chunky yarns. Two of the three aisles are gigantic skeins of chunky yarns. I could only find one brand of sock or fingering weight yarn and all of them were variegated. I needed just one solid colour. Also, most of the yarns I was interested in had only 1 or 2 skeins left and colour choices were limited. The offerings at Michaels are abysmal. It was extremely disappointing. Guess online ordering will be the thing for me now for most projects. LYS are great but not always the greatest destination when your budget is limited.