JOANN Fabrics and Crafts, which began as a single store in 1943, has about 850 stores in 49 states, according to its website.

The popular craft retailer has five locations in Maine and eight locations in New Hampshire.

JOANN is reported to be closing some of its stores in 2023.

Is JOANN closing stores in Maine in 2023?

Luckily, for Maine, as of this writing, none of the five stores in Auburn, Bangor, Portland, Topsham and Waterville are set to close.

You can keep going to the Maine stores when you're feeling crafty.

Is JOANN closing stores in New Hampshire in 2023?

Unfortunately, the Keene, New Hampshire, store at 401 West Street "fully" closed on January 22, 2023, according to The Keene Sentinal.

The newspaper reported that the closing sale was set to begin back in late November and that the lease for the store would be expiring at the end of January.

An official word from JOANN as to the reason for the Keene closure was not immediately available.

The other JOANN stores in the Granite State are in Belmont, Concord, Hooksett, Nashua, Newington, Rochester, Seabrook, and West Lebanon.

Is JOANN going out of business?

For all you craft fans out there, the short answer is that no, JOANN is not going out of business.

News Center Maine wrote up a report to set the record straight on the rumors following the news about some store closures.

A tweet from JOANN's Twitter account replying to someone else's tweet, which also was noted by News Center Maine, said that there wasn't a "closure list" or that they were going out of business.

A November article from yahoo.com did highlight JOANN stores closing, but really only pointed out two of them rather than some big list.

If anything it looks like it's just part of their regular normal business process of opening some new stores and closing some others.

So while the one New Hampshire store is closed as of January 2023, JOANN isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

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