Wed, 06 Mar 2024

I've been adding new Patreon and Ko-Fi subscribers (and rewards) and was getting some hope that I might be able to pull this off by the end of June, and then social media went down. Whoops. It's fine, I have a giant stack of designs that need tested.

(Technically, as I write this on Tuesday, Bluesky is still up though lagging because everybody from the other sites has come there to talk about things being down. And of course blogs are still fine, though if you're reading this I'm just preaching to the choir.)

And I haven't mentioned it (except on social media) because I was waiting for some news from other than Bloomberg, but apparently JoAnn is filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. It's just(?) reorganization, but it'll almost certainly mean stores closing. Hopefully not mine, the largest-in-the-state store that is a consolidation of two sad little 1970's strip-mall relics (and that is next door to the vacant storefront of an A.C. Moore, another failed craft chain), but who can tell. Of course, even a healthy JoAnn is not a great source for non-dot minky, and with the shuttering of Fabric dot com I've just been living off my Shannon stash which, while considerable, isn't going to last forever.

Anyway, they haven't even filed yet, are just "contemplating" it, which I assume is really sending up a flare hoping for a buyer. I'll give it some time before panicking.

All of this will probably be fine. The sites will figure out their issues, and if JoAnn goes under, well, I guess I'll have to finally check out Fabric Row in Philly. It's only six miles as the crow flies, but regrettably NJ Transit does not fly like a crow.

Anyway, off to wrap up Friday's designs. Here's a little preview of a design that's been sitting in my WIP folder while I tried to figure out how to reliably make the flowerpot work. The solution was embarrassingly easy and I should stop overthinking things. Problems can be solved!