Tim Harty, The Business Times

The end of May officially brought an end to fabric and craft retailer JoAnn at Mesa Mall in Grand Junction, and like many area fabric-store owners, Hartland Clubb was saddened by the national chain’s demise.

“We considered the staff at Joann and the other people that shop there as friends and colleagues, because even though they’re competitors, a lot of our customers shop both stores, and that made the market larger,” said Clubb, who along with his wife, Michelle, owns Clubb’s Fabrics, 417 Main St. in Delta. “But hopefully we can take advantage of the opportunity for more sales, and that’ll improve our store and improve the way we serve our customers, because it gives us opportunity to add inventory and create broader selections of things.”

In the mix of things being added are some fixtures Clubb purchased from JoAnn, primarily its fabric racks, which Clubb’s Fabrics will put to good use.

“They had a number of fabric racks that suited our purposes better than what we were using for a couple of reasons,” Clubb said. “One, they hold more fabric. And two, they’re on wheels, so it makes it easy for us to change up the displays and roll them around. JoAnn’s hardly ever did that, but they were still on wheels, and so we hope to take advantage of that.

“Other than that, it’s not really gonna change the store that much, except it’ll just give us space for more fabric.”

Clubb said store fixtures in general are expensive, and he was able to buy the ones from Joann for about one-tenth of the price of new racks.

“We were glad to get these,” he said, “because they’re heavy. We like the idea that they were made in the United States, and we’re recycling something that would’ve otherwise just gone to scrap metal.”

Clubb also bought a measuring table from JoAnn and said, “That will help us sell more decorator fabrics. We do carry a pretty good selection of the decorator fabrics for outdoor-type things, that you fix some outdoor furniture with, and some indoor things. And we do a lot of business in vinyl upholstery that people use to restore cars and RVs.”

Picking up a few things from Joann is just incidental, though, in the big picture for Clubb’s Fabrics. Clubb said he and Michelle closed their craft and variety store in Delta in 2023 and kept the fabric store to focus on it.

Clubb said he’s getting old – he’s 71 years old – and he can’t keep up with everything like he once did, but he’s not ready to retire. He and Michelle are busy making the 6,000-square-foot fabric store better, adding to the appeal that has made it a destination for shoppers on the Western Slope who quilt, knit, make clothes, etc.

“We do offer a lot of quilting fabrics,” Hartland Clubb said. “We carry presently about 12,000 SKUs of fabrics. We have over 1,000 batiks, for example, and so we try to offer a variety on hand, because people that work with fabric want to see it, feel, touch it, look at it in comparison.

“We have tables in the store where they can lay it out together and lay out a whole quilt if they want to. We carry a large selection of notions, meaning the accessories, the threads, the tapes, trims, all kinds of tools, scissors, cutters and rulers. Quilters use specialized rulers to make a lot of the blocks, and we try to have a good supply of those.”

He said Clubb’s Fabrics is stocking more apparel fabrics, too.

“That’s where our business started actually,” Clubb said. “When I started carrying fabrics about 50 years ago in our Ben Franklin stores, we specialized in apparel. In those days, people made clothing for themselves, because it was either better or a better value than the clothing they could find on the rack at the store. And they did it to save money.

“Now we do it as an art, and we do it because we can’t find a fitting, or it’s difficult to shop online for clothing. And so the ladies make a lot of their own clothing simply because it’s better, better clothing than they could find on a rack anywhere nearby.”

Clubb said the store will carry some new polyesters, like what is used in some sports apparel.

He added, “We even have wedding fabric, where you would want to buy or alter or repurpose another garment or something that you would use now, bring it up to style.”

With what Clubb’s Fabrics has to offer and JoAnn out of business, Clubb hopes a few more Grand Junction shoppers will find their way to Delta and his store.

“We know it’s a drive, but it’s not a bad drive,” he said. “We have lots of other things in Delta to look at, see and do. We have people that regularly come from the area, all over the area to come to the restaurants here and other stores like Davis Clothing and Tara’s (Boutique). McKnight’s Jewelry, I know, has a kind of a following around the area.”

If new customers at Clubb’s Fabrics are like the existing ones, Clubb knows what to prepare for.

“We kind of laugh when we talk to our customers,” he said. “They love to buy fabric from us, and we tell them that the reason they buy fabric from us – and, I suppose, it is a little tongue in cheek – but the reason they buy fabric from us is so we can buy more fabric. And that’s what they come to us for.”