Joy's Fabrics, Stephenville, TX

Joy’s Fabrics (Stephenville, Texas, across from the courthouse) is host to the Busy Bees, an informal sewing group that meets on the third Saturday of each month, from 10 a.m. to noon. I am giving October’s meeting program, where I will show lots and lots of my knitted/sewn/machine-embroidered work. That includes the secret ladybug wall hanging, previously glimpsed on this blog.

Joy will set up an ironing board so I can demonstrate some TextileFusion techniques. You can pick up one of my pretty postcards, too.

And now for a Joy’s Fabrics testimonial: I love shopping at Joy’s. Joy herself is there to help. She knows a lot about sewing, and she can give help and advice. When I finish a quilt top or garment shell, I take it over to Joy’s. She walks around the store with it, testing it against various fabrics. We pull out bolts of the most promising fabrics. We always find something that works beautifully.

Now, suppose one had a couple of young daughters who weren’t particularly interested in fabric shopping at the moment. Joy’s store is roomy enough for children to run around. She doesn’t mind if they hide under the pattern book table. Last time we were there, my husband chased our two-year-old Ella all over the place. The little one giggled and laughed a lot, and she may have even shrieked. Joy took it in her stride, and offered a cool drink of water to the two runners.

Stephenville is southwest of Fort Worth, on Hwy 377/67, going through Granbury. It’s a small college town, so it has a good choice of restaurants. It has hidden treasures, like a Dutch food store, called Dutch Touch, which carries Dutch cheeses, rollmops, wonderful cookies, and more. It is tucked into the back of a children’s clothing store called For Kids Only.