Why I Go to Floyd Va For Fabric…

“A mountain drive, an old schoolhouse, and the quiet joy of choosing cloth…”

I go to Floyd, Virginia for fabric because something in me settles the moment I arrive. The drive there is full of hills and switchbacks, the kind that make you pay attention and strengthen your core without asking permission. By the time I reach town, the mountains are layered all around me, steady and familiar. Floyd is a small mountain town that feels tucked in and held. You can see the hills from almost everywhere, and they remind me to slow down.

Schoolhouse fabrics sits inside an old three story schoolhouse, 1880s, originally, rebuilt early 1900s. The wooden floors creak when you walk, the smell takes me straight back to my own childhood—my elementary school on the outskirts of town, the same one my Grandfather once went to before I did.

While I shop, soft Gospel music plays through the building. Kind, soft-spoken women measure and cut fabric for me, carefully and patiently. There’s no rush. It feels respectful, like everyone knows this cloth will become something meaningful.

The main floor is filled with neatly organized quilt fabric, calm and clean, with finished quilts hanging quietly in the background. One quilt with a chicken design, made by a local woman, always makes me smile.

Highway 221 runs nearby, ready to carry me toward Fancy Gap and whatever comes next. But Floyd always stays with me. It isn’t just where I buy fabric. It’s where memory, making, and mountains meet-and where I remember why I love creating in the first place.