Dee

My mom worked in the same dept. as mgr. in yard goods. Yes, Wards, Sears, Penny's, K Mart and more sold fabric. Sure miss those days. I found a piece from TGY for $.49 They had beautiful good cotton fabric.

hapytlk

I am a fabric collector from way back and I have purchased fabric at JCPenney! 80's last time I remember getting any there.

Nina Baker

I am 70 and the fabric for my wardrobe in 57'58 came from Penney's, and patterns were $.25 and $.35 each. Mother thought $.35 was too much and wound pay more than the $.25 Nina

bjdemir

Back in the 50's our Penny's in Oregon City also had a mezzanine where they sold fabric. They also had the yard measurer where they they ran the fabric through the machine to get the yardage. I am not sure when they shut down the fabric department. But it could have been in the 70's as by that time our Penny's had moved and then later they were flooded. The entire basement was underwater as well as a few feet of the main floor from the flooding of the Willamette River. Sure brings back memories of buying material there to make our clothes as we were growing up.

Minnisewta

I worked at Penney's in the early 70's and our store was selling fabric. Mostly 60 inch polyester for 4.99 a yard. I think you could make the elastic waist pull on pants with a 1.25 yards. I have no idea about if it's cotton or not. I just know I measured a ton of ugly polyester fabric. I don't remember when they stopped selling fabric.

montanajan

I still have Mom's old button box - we spent many rainy hours sorting & playing with her buttons. Mom was way ahead of her time with recycling & re-using clothing, buttons, etc - many of our clothes were from old dresses taken apart, & back then, no one I knew threw away an old piece of clothing without removing the buttons first.

DebbyT

My mother entered me in a sewing contest at Singer. We selected the fabric and pattern there at Singer. It was in 1967, and I was 13. We went every day for about 2 weeks maybe 3. After about 3 days I realized it was more like a class because the instructor/moderator kept telling me how to sew. By 13 I had already learned a lot of shortcuts and she would tell me to go back and do it right, like marking darts with thread tacks. I used chalk marks or pins. My mom chose my pattern - a dress I could wear to school. The girl who won made a formal/prom dress. I wanted so much to win and wanted to try again the next year, and make that prom dress, but the program ended, or so my mom said.

GrandmaAva

In Cleveland, Ohio, the "better" department stores all carried "better" fabric - Higbee's, Halle's, Sterling Lindner, etc.

GrandmaAva

Those "better dept. stores also had drugstore departments.

maria zamora

I lived in Brownsville, Texas till my 20s. The J C Penney's down town used to sell fabric. I remember they were of very good quality. When the malls came to town all the beautiful old buildings were left empty and the JC Penney's and other stores opened bigger stores at the mall. When that happened the fabric department was gone. I liked the old store better.