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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Yarn Crawl Crisscrosses Valley Floor

Local yarn retailers are gearing up to welcome the thousands of knitters, spinners and other “fiber enthusiasts” who will weave their way through the Valley in early April for this year’s Los Angeles County Yarn Crawl. Yarn Crawl board member Debra Cooper-Jaffe, owner of fiber shop A Major Knitwork in Van Nuys, expects the event will draw roughly 2,000 “crawlers” to the region. The 21 participant stores, including six in the San Fernando Valley and one in Santa Clarita, can anticipate as many as 800 visitors each between April 6 and April 9, she figures. “There’s a huge community of people that love yarn,” said Cooper-Jaffe, who enlisted the help of other retailers to launch the inaugural L.A. County yarn crawl in 2011. The event has grown to be the largest of its kind in the nation, according to host organization Association of Los Angeles County Yarn Shops. That’s a significant accomplishment, as yarn crawls are held in cities throughout the U.S. and have grown in popularity over the last decade, Cooper-Jaffe said. “The number of yarn crawls has increased because people love to shop local,” she said. The event works much like a pub crawl. Guests carry “passports” from one shop to the next, collecting stamps and goody bags from retailers. Shops hand out free knit patterns and offer discounts on supplies. Crawlers who obtain stamps from all the shops in a designated region are entered to win a $500 gift basket. “This is the time for each shop to do something that reflects them,” Cooper-Jaffe said. In the case of her own store, visitors will have the chance to enjoy the work of Hawaii-based Hanalei Hand Dyed Yarns, which creates fibers in colors inspired by photography. Lucky guests will walk away with door prizes, too. “It’s just like a party,” Cooper-Jaffe said. “Everybody is welcome.” The newest stop on this year’s circuit is SoCal Knits in Burbank. Owner Florence Pagaduan, who opened the store in October, said she is looking forward to the crawl to welcome fellow fiber-lovers into her business. “This is a big event for Southern California and Los Angeles County knitters,” she said. “It’s nice to see like-minded people get together.” – Helen Floersh

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