J&O Celebrates Akoma Day: A Cultural Alternative to Valentine’s Day

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As millions across America save up their extra pennies, personal work days, and long awaited proposals to celebrate the worldwide holiday designed for lovers and better known as Valentines Day, another similar holiday is taking place in many African-American communities that recognizes not only the nurturing of romantic love, but love from a communal and cultural perspective as well. Enter in Akoma Day.

Akoma Day is a seven day holiday celebration of love between individuals within the African-American community. Observed during February in place of Valentines Day, the focus of this fairly new holiday is to ” …restore ‘ Black Love ‘ as the primordial example of love personified,” says founders Montsho &  Nwasha Edu.  Although officially celebrated for one week from February 14th to February 20th, Akoma Day is designed to be celebrated throughout the year as a tool to help cultivate and reflect the highest level of love in all relationships. 

J&O Celebrates National Pie Day (January 23).

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pie [pahy]: n. A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that covers or completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Pies can be either “filled”, where a dish is covered by pastry and the filling is placed on top of that, “top-crust,” where the filling is placed in a dish and covered with a pastry/potato mash top before baking, or “two-crust,” with the filling completely enclosed in the pastry shell.

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Pie lovers, mark your calendars!!!

What Do Snoop Dogg, George McCartney & J&O Fabrics Have in Common?

 

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CUPCAKES, CUPCAKES, and MORE CUPCAKES !!!

 

Who would’ve thought?! But here it is in true avante-garde fashion and flair, sweet pastries on print, styled into a tailored 3-piece suit, complete with coordinating carnation pink lining, lapel trim and tie to match. Originally designed by graphic artist George McCartney for Timeless Treasures Textiles (#GM C-5993) and then constructed into a suit for Katy Perry’s ‘California Girl’s’ video featuring none other than Long Island’s very own Snoop Dogg, our cupcake fabric has become the tie that binds east with west  and cute novelty prints with urban-pop culture. 

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Some Like it Red & Hot!

Capsicum annuum, Capsicum frutescens, Capsicum chinense, Capsicum pubescens, Capsicum baccatum… these are just some of the scientific names given to our gold old fashion hot and spicy red hot chili pepper.

Cultivated in America well before Columbus discovered this zesty vegetable and introduced it to the rest of Spain, red chili peppers are not only used for culinary purposes, but for decoration, to ward off evil spirits, as medicinal remedies, both personal and crop defense, as well as for providing the body with powerful antioxidants in the form of Vitamin C and carotene. Just like most red and orange colored foods from Mother Nature’s kitchen, chili peppers are great for getting the blood flowing in our bodies, and are even often symbolic of  ‘spicy’ attitude a well. Red hot chili peppers are also good for lounging around in. Well, not  in the literal sense unless you have a pepper fetish, but in the hot-print-on-my-cool-pajama-pants sense. With less than two yards of jalapenio or habinero fabric, a fun coordinated pant and shirt set are born.

Newsflash!!! J&O Fabric Now Selling Fruits & Vegy’s.

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You heard right, J&O Fabrics is now selling fruits and vegetables inbetween the isles of our NJ based brick and mortar store! What prompted our owners to add produce to our already established and reputable 45 year fabric business? Your guess is as good as mine, but as history would show, this isn’t the first time we’ve mixed food with fabric. Over the years,we’ve sold everything from decadant chocolates and sweet pastries, to home made soup and ice cream from our  supermarket sized store in Pennsauken. Come to think of it, we’ve sold just about every food and beverage within these four walls, that the term ‘supermarket’ almost seems fitting.

Remember the Days!

Remember the days of old when you could run into your local corner store and fill that little brown bag up with an array of colorfully assorted candies all for a quarter. When Swedish fish were found by the pound in your mouth instead of by the schools in their homeland lakes, and licorice shoe strings stayed wrapped around your tongue instead of around the laces in your favorite ‘bo-bo’ kicks. These were the days of hopscotch and jump rope, jacks and hide-and-go-seek; when little boys could catch cooties from little girls, and little girls could catch heartbreaks from kindergarten hunks. In the days of old, summers lasted forever and every summer rainstorm left a rainbow across the sky.