Photo by Rebecca Smith
The annual WNC Yarn Crawl takes place Tuesday, May 3, through Saturday, May 7. The event is an opportunity for crafters and fiber arts enthusiasts to create a self-guided tour of the region’s yarn shops and celebrate activities including knitting, crocheting, weaving and spinning. This year’s theme is the personal creative journey and how it brings crafters together.
“We hope those who travel to the local yarn stores that week will share their journey as they feel comfortable, including but not limited to sharing something they have made—yarn-related or not—in the past two years since the last crawl,” says Rebecca Smith, owner of Sun Dragon Art & Fiber, in Brevard.
Eleven yarn shops will participate, offering special sales, door prizes and other giveaways. Echoview Fiber Mill, in Weaverville, will offer special yarns, coffee and refreshments and a chance to win a basket of prizes. Echoview works directly with farmers, buying and processing their fibers, spinning them into yarns to both sell and to utilize for making items including clothing and accessories.
“We are really looking forward to greeting crawlers after missing them for the last couple of years and seeing how their crafting journey has changed,” says Echoview’s creative director Grace Casey-Gouin. “There are also many newcomers to the area who are just getting the chance to meet others with similar interests for the first time, so we are excited to welcome them into the fold and learn about what they have been making.”
At Black Mountain Yarn Shop, visitors can sign up for upcoming knitting and crochet clinics, browse yarn, tools, accessories and notions, and get ideas from staff for new projects appropriate for various skill levels. In Candler, Friends & Fiberworks offers 4,000 square feet of yarn, patterns, notions, clothing and tools for everything from knitting and crochet to weaving. Classes take place daily for all skill levels. Sun Dragon Art & Fiber provides items including yarn, notions and art supplies. One-on-one help sessions can be arranged and virtual knit and crochet sessions are held regularly. For the yarn crawl, door prizes are offered and shoppers can spin the Wheel of Discounts to save a percentage off their purchases. Smith and her staff will be on hand to discuss all things fiber arts.
“It is always wonderful to see what everyone’s vision has produced,” says Smith. “The same pattern with different yarns, fibers and thicknesses can produce entirely different results, all of them beautiful. Even someone’s mistakes, which we affectionately call ‘design elements’, add to the uniqueness of a piece.”
Other participating shops include Asheville NC Home Crafts, Earth Guild, and Purl’s Yarn Emporium in Asheville; OSuzannah’s Yarn on Union, in Morganton; Silver Threads & Golden Needles, in Franklin; Yiayia Black Sheep, in Mars Hill; and Yummi Yarns, in Burnsville. WNC Yarn Crawl hours are specific to each shop.
Learn more at WNCYarnCrawl.com.
