In May, Joann, the national crafting chain formerly known as Jo-Ann Fabrics, closed its doors for good. And then, to add insult to injury for sewists and crafters across the country, the parent company behind the biggest brands in commercial sewing patterns filed for bankruptcy.

It may seem like a grim moment for the world of sewing, but arts and crafts supplies remains a $50 billion industry globally. Local shops like Stitch House Dorchester, a knitting supplies shop just south of Boston’s downtown, stand to gain.  

Regulars meet at the shop every month to knit and chat together, and patrons like Diane Gantman, 76, are glad to have a place to shop in-person. When asked if she ever shops online for her supplies, her answer was an emphatic no.

“I have to touch it,” Gantman said. “I have to see it. I have to see the color.”

That commitment to shopping face-to-face is what Annissa Essaibi George, Stitch House’s owner, is betting on.

“There are now fewer places for people to go and look, and feel, and touch, and, crafters will understand this comment, smell before you buy it,” said George. “So we've seen definitely a little bit of a bump and some new customers.”

However, depending on where a crafter lives, they might not have a place anymore where they can look and touch and smell the fabric they’re buying in person. For those consumers, online shops stand ready.

Among those e-tailers are Joanna Lynch and her husband. They own The Linen Lab, a fabric manufacturer based in Seoul, South Korea.

“When people buy our fabric, a lot of times they just start out with a couple yards, but then a lot of times I see them come back and they'll spend way more than that money when they learn to trust our company,” said Lynch.

The Linen Lab has been in business since 1987, but didn’t start selling online until 2020. When they made that transition, Lynch quickly learned that sewists want more than just a picture before they buy.

So Lynch, who’s originally from the Boston area, acts as a local sales rep when she’s back to visit, hosting coffee shop meetups for local sewists.

“The goal of this is to let them touch fabric, see if they're happy with the feel, tell about the company so they know it's trustworthy,” Lynch said. “That's why we're here.”

She has plenty of samples on hand to look through at these events. The booklets are similar to a fabric version of paint swatches with plaids, ginghams, and solids of every color. 

“I don't know if anyone's gonna buy fabric today, and that's totally fine,” Lynch said. “My goal is brand recognition.”

In the Linen Lab’s first year selling online, it pulled in about $50,000 in overseas sales. Now that Lynch has built that brand recognition, this year, it’s at $200,000 and counting.

So that’s the fabric side of things, but to actually make something, sewists typically want a pattern, and the online market is the place to find it now.

Sanna Myers has been making patterns professionally since 2017.

“I went to pattern making school in Sweden,” Myers said. “It's like a trade school.”

She’s based in Oahu, Hawaii, now, and she’s worked with some small, local brands. During the pandemic, though, she discovered the world of indie pattern makers on Instagram.

“I saw what they were doing, and I said, ‘Wait, I actually, I have all those skills,’” Myers said. “So I was like, ‘I should just do it myself.’”

She started by sharing some designs online but it wasn’t until one pattern, a low-back dress, had a viral moment that business took off.

“It was kind of insane,” Myers said. “I had notifications on on my phone. It just went ding, ding, ding, ding. I was like, ‘What just happened?’”

That dress pattern that put her on the map has singlehandedly pulled in almost $90,000 in the four years it’s been online, and her follower count on Instagram has ticked past 60,000.

And that following has meant more trust from sewists, and more sales even online.