New crafts store open
When I heard about a new Ben Franklin Crafts store in Hopkinsville, I was interested. WalMart has been our primary source of such items since JoAnn Fabrics closed its Hopkinsville store a dozen years ago or more. Now, rumors abound that our WalMart will be closing its sewing and crafts section soon.
Keely and I decided to investigate. We drove about a mile west of town on Highway 272 (Canton Pike) to the Oak View Plaza. The Ben Franklin is located on the right of the Food Lion grocery store.It is not a large store, but it has a decent selection of craft items. More items are to be added as stock arrives (oil and acrylic paints and supplies, picture framing.)
Scrapbookers will find a variety of papers and embellishments. For beaders, the store has an assortment of beads and jewelry findings. Several hundred printed cotton fabrics are in stock, along with sewing notions. We saw lots of doodads and gadgets for most of the major needlecrafts, as well as basic materials.
Not surprisingly, the prices are a little higher than we've been paying at WalMart. However, if WalMart's craft department closes, it will certainly be more economical to pay the Ben Franklin price than to make a 60-mile round trip to a Clarksville, TN, craft store. Meanwhile, I'm going to give the BF a little business so maybe it will still be open if/when we lose the WalMart craft supplies.
The store is owned and operated by Anne K. Koehne (at right in the above photo), and it's open from 10 AM to 7 PM daily, except Sunday when the hours are 1 PM to 5 PM. That's Keely at left, giving me a look for taking her picture.I was surprised that the store is a Ben Franklin. I had imagined that Ben Franklin went out of business years ago.
We had a Ben Franklin store in Bassett, Nebraska, when I was growing up. Looking back, I realize that it always had lots of craft items. I remember crochet threads and yarn, fabrics and sewing notions, tubes of fabric paint, and lots of kits -- kits for embroidered pillowcases and kitchen towels and quilt blocks, latch-hook rug kits, and of course, paint-by-number kits in various levels of difficulty.
4 comments:
I worry that Wal-Mart will begin to close stores in outlying areas when profit margins get thin. Then many rural residents will have to drive many miles for necessities, and many country folks will find themselves out of work.
Thanks for your continuing stories about rural Nebraska where my dad grew up.
I'm surprised too to see that Ben Franklin is still going. We had a BF that went out of business years ago, and an enormous fabric store went under too. Meanwhile, the Wal-Mart fabric section seems to be shrinking (no pun intended) and is often unattended.
Ben Franklin was the five and ten near my junior high school in Lincoln, NE. We walked there after school to buy Pixie Stix and Slo-Pokes. That's where I bought my embroidery floss in the late Sixties. Just thinking about it makes me want a box of Milk Duds!
The Wal Mart stores here in Grensburg have already cut out most of their sewing products. I had to go Jo Ann Fabrics and the price was higher there.
We had a few Ben Franklin stores still when we were living in Ohio. I have not seen one here, yet.
I think Wal Mart is making a big mistake. Sometimes you would run to get a spool of thread or some other small item and see something else you could use or need, not sewing related. I for one will not be running there for supplies so at least one customer is lost, and how many more will do the same.
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