Hancock Fabrics

It’s a hit or miss place depending on what your looking for. Not many staff members are available. Prices not bad. The two times in here, it seems a little bit in a disorder. But, they has what I was looking for. Check out was interesting cause both times, one of the two registers were out of order. Overall. really not a bad place.

This isn’t an enjoyable shopping experience. If you like the feeling of scavenging for fabric, then this is your place. There is so much fabric but it’s everywhere and difficult to easily look for what you need. A lot of shelves that would have notions or other accessories are empty, and the floors are super dirty. If the prices reflected the thrift store atmosphere, then I’d be all for it. But the prices aren’t any lower than hobby lobby across the street.

I hate this place. They carry fabric at less expensive base prices than JoAnn, but the quality is also much lower. The staff here is my biggest complaint, though. I have come here for almost five years and I don’t think anyone has ever smiled at me or at anyone else in the store while I’ve been there. I don’t think they know how to. They are rude and not very knowledgeable. I think that may be a prerequisite for being hired here. That being said, one can sometimes find fabrics here that are unlike those available at other stores and are of acceptable quality. I don’t know that the employees’ attitudes are worth dealing with to get them, though.

Ugh. I want to love this place. I love to sew. Can’t stand this store and it tears at my soul.
While they have a ton of fabric and prices and discount bins and tables (everyone loves to dig through discount bins!!), they are incredibly understaffed ALL THE TIME and the lines to checkout and cut fabric are ridiculous. You just can’t win.
Half the time it looks like the place is going out of business or just got looted with the spotty/​bare shelves and handful of children running around creating chaos that «somehow» their parents can ignore.
I also found out yesterday in order to use the coupons you have to sign up for their rewards program. Fine, I’ll give you my phone number, but THAT process takes even longer and now I’m the jerk holding 10 ppl up because we’re using a computer and checkout system from 1992. You also can’t use coupons on your phone, they have to dig through a stack of flyers, find the coupon, cut it out and scan it for you.
Sorry Hancock. I’m sticking with JoAnns.

Love this place, dislike the location, next to «harbor freight tools» and lots of construction. Also in a weird intersection that’s confusing to get out of.
They don’t have the best selection but are really friendly and helpful with all my questions. I prefer Joann’s selection but Hancock’s prices!
Staff is a plus, never had a bad experience and I visit this store a couple times a month. The selection tends to be picked over and not always restocked, but I haven’t had a bad experience yet !

Docked a point for the line to cut my fabric.
SO MANY SELECTIONS! Very very pleased with my first impression of Hancock Fabrics. I came near Halloween day and a lot of the great fabric selections were 50% off! Pleasant surprise, especially since I was this close to going to my traditional Joann’s.
I recently started sewing again since 2005… and I remember how expensive fabric used to be, and how hard it was to find something I liked. Here, I love the colors, textures, and variations of the fabrics here, plus all the little trinkets, accessories, and materials/​instruments they offer!
Hancock is my go-​to. Conveniently located nearby my chiropractor!
Very pleased.

Beautiful colors from all to wall. Tons of fabrics, they have it all! I can pick up different sets, because they’re so organized, and there’s always a sale to my surprise! I’m always exhaulted by the different crazy patterns they provide, too many choices, it’s hard to decide!

The service has definitely improved since I started shopping here hence the 4 stars now. And, a few new faces are extremely fun and interested in what you are making. It makes it more enjoyable for everyone. The store is smaller and has just the basics. Inventory choices could be improved.

This store is the worst fabric store in town. The selection is limited, prices don’t compare well to other places in town, and customer service is poor. Both the cutting and check out lines have been painfully slow on recent visits. And it’s not just that quilters have a lot of fabric to cut and buy; the employees move at a glacial pace. I would really like to see this store improve as it is convenient to me, but I really hope never to return.

The selection was alright but the lines were long and they were short staffed (as always). At least the woman who cut my fabric was nice!

Pretty horrible. They consistently don’t have typical items in stock (zippers, scissors, needles). They are always understaffed. The only reason I’m giving 2 stars is that once or twice I found cute fabric here.
Honestly, you’re better off driving 15 miles to the north Joann’s location aka «Sewing Heaven.»

This location is ok, but nothing special. For the size of the store their selection is surprisingly small. The quilting fabric is positive. Their pattern selection seems to be regularly depleted (I walked in looking for 6 and they only had one, went to a competitor the next day and was able to get the other 5).
Not much stock of modern fabrics or things «younger» people usually like. They seem to cater to the «traditional» senior citizen customer. Not what I was hoping for…
The staff were not very helpful and seemed irritated when I asked a question. I waited in line to check out for almost 10 minutes before I was served (and they weren’t that busy, just really slow).
Overall, I would just say ok. If you need something standard it is probably there, if you want something cool or different it probably won’t be…

I stopped in here looking for some specific buttons. The selection is surprisingly small given the size of the store.
There was one person working the cash register and a line of people waiting to pay.
This is really a 2 star review but they had a similar button that I was looking for.

A good selection of fabric but HORRIBLE customer service. They only had a few yards of the fabric that I liked. The woman said I should call the other store to see if they had it. She didn’t give me the number OR tell me that they had recetly moved locations.
I learned from a semi-​helpful woman that they had 14 yards of it so I drove 45 minutes to find an emptry store and a sign saying they had moved. 20 minutes later I arrive at the new location & they didn’t have any of that fabric! I’m shopping online from now on.

It is REALLY hard to find fabrics your grandmother wouldn’t like in here, the staff have no idea what they’re doing or whats going on, and their machine repair service is very expensive ($ 60 flat rate no matter whats wrong.)
However, their selection is huge (but once again full of fabrics that most people wouldn’t want to use for much of anything.), they carry every additional supply you could ever need with many options for each, and the prices are pretty good. I typically get all of the supplies I need here (needles, buttons, thread, batting, etc) then go to a more local, trendy store for fabric (Fanny’s always has cute stuff.) This store is just very dated and they don’t even carry many modern fabric types, much less in attractive prints or textures.
Go here if you have to, but try local places first if you need some cute fabric. It will be very hard to find here.

I’m not good with a needle, but I regularly find myself in need of making repairs to my clothing. This is the place I go to for supplies in that regard.
I also like coming here before Halloween to find cool Halloween fabrics.

I needed some fabric and elastic for my Halloween costume and thought I could find everything I needed here. The fabrics weren’t organized in a coherent fashion (unlike JoAnn’s, where you can easily find what you need) and the employees seemed to be actively avoiding customers who need help. I was one of maybe 2 or 3 customers in the store and not once was I asked if I could be helped. The employees were too busy doing inventory or whatever to be bothered to help. I approached one of them because I just couldn’t find what I needed, and she made me feel like I was inconveniencing her. I ended up getting some elastic, but they were out of the fabric I needed (they ran out.) Ended up going to Hobby Lobby, where they had the foresight to order extra (this fabric is super popular during Halloween)

On to my next stop in my clothing store, fabric store, hardware store, hardware store day: Hancock Fabrics. I actually really dislike this place, though it is inevitably where I end up going for most of my fabric needs. It smells funny in here and is dusty. And sometimes, it takes FOREVER to get your fabric cut. And often, the fabrics are really old and outdated looking (I know, because I used to work here a million years ago and I still recognize fabrics from that era). Also, they sure do have a lot of cheap, kitschy home goods things when they should be stocking more fabric. I mean, this is a fabric store or a Tuesday Morning?
Anyway, I had a pretty good feeling they would have the generic fabrics that I need to give a little modesty to the dress I’d bought at Lovely that day. You know, just a little something to cover up the décolleté to a reasonable level (also that could easily be removed when modesty was no longer an issue). I got some turquoise tulle to make a little cover-​up with and enough to make a little sash. I also bought black tulle in case I wanted to have the cover up match the dress. Stood in line forever as the clerk tried to explain some higher-​level fabric-​buying wisdom to a customer (if you want it to drape, you have to buy one and a half to two times as much fabric as you would just to cover). Anyway, that is like math and you can explain it to someone but you can’t understand it for them. I once had someone argue with me that a yard was not three feet, so I feel for the clerks in these situations.
Once the woman bought exactly the wrong amount of fabric to make a toga or whatever, the clerk got to me. She tried to convince me to get a quarter yard of the black tulle and I politely declined. And she said it was just an inch more, and I said «I know, I only need 6 inches, and 5/​8s on each side for seam allowance, so 8 inches more than enough». If you give ‘em an inch… Finally got my fabric cut and paid pretty quickly and was on my way. Slightly disappointed that among all that junk in the store, they did not have one of those special sponges that removes deodorant stains, which the dress I had just bought was rife with.

When I’m in the mood for that special fabric to make me look fabulous, for some reason, this is always where I head. As far as selection in Austin goes, they seem to be a little bit ahead of Joann’s and Hobby Lobby, but this is only a relative compliment (dammit Austin, why don’t you have a «real» yardage store!?) the staff is generally very nice (though not always the quickest at the cutting table — but if you’ve read any other reviews, you already know they’re short staffed).
That being said, wtf is up with their weekend hours? If they close at 6 pm on a Saturday, how am I supposed to pick up the extra half yard of fabric I need to finish my costume? Don’t they know I’m a procrastinator and the party doesn’t start until 10? Seriously people!

I hate giving places like this a bad review, but this place is just ridiculous!
I’ve been here a few times in the past month, just happened to drive by and needed a quick item to finish a project. Just be sure you do not need to do a return and do not need assistance in anything while in the store. They have as few employees in here as possible, at all times. I waited 10 minutes for the check-​out person to come back to check out all 10 of us just waiting for her. Then unfortunately, she had no idea what she was doing upon return.
The prices aren’t always as marked, and if it says it’s 75% off, the item you bring to the front better have some kind of sticker on it, or they will not give it to you.
I’ve gone here off and on over the years and these issues have gotten much worse than I could ever imagine. Yes, they have a good selection, but again, don’t go here if you need assistance getting anything, they will no help and are rather rude about it.