10TH L.A. COUNTY YARN CRAWL ANNOUNCES BAG DESIGN CONTEST WINNER AND NEW CELEBRATORY “TREASURE HUNT” FOR LIVE EVENT RETURN MARCH 24-27, 2022

Los Angeles, CA, 2022-Jan-09 — /EPR Network/ — CELEBRATING TEN YEARS, the L.A. County Yarn Crawl is happy to announce two ways it is bench-marking its four-day live event return slated for March 24-27, 2022 10 AM – 6 PM.  Excited to revive in-person interest from locals, tourists, and multi-generational fiber arts enthusiasts after a two-year absence since its pandemic postponement in 2020, the L.A. County Yarn Crawl’s triumphant comeback will include fifteen women-owned yarn shops across six unique communities sprawling across 143 miles of Greater Los Angeles County.   The L.A. County Yarn Crawl eyed a new way to stitch together advanced interest, participation and artistic inclusion with its long-awaited return. One of the momentum-building components included a call for entries to graphic artists and fiber artists through various online outreach portals to participate in the event’s bag design contest which ran November 15 -December 10, 2021.  The L.A. County Yarn Crawl has chosen their 10^th celebration design and proudly announces bag design contest winner Stefanie Le of Elk Grove, California.

Experiencing a very twisty geographic yarn crawl journey of her own on her way to her present victory, Le, a Northern California area knitting newbie heard about the L.A. County Yarn Crawl from another fiber event further away in Sierra Nevada.  But it was a trip to Orange County, California which inspired the artwork to create the Los Angeles bag design bringing Southern California vibes to her winning vision with an even bigger purposeful vision in mind.

“I have never entered any design contest (before), but decided to enter this one because I think it is important to support small businesses and artists.  I had so much fun during the creative process, exploring different concepts and design ideas. My hope is to draw attention and bring in a crowd of enthusiasts. I am truly honored to have won.  I live in the Sacramento area, but will definitely make a trip to L.A. for the crawl.  My design inspiration came from a family trip I took to Huntington Beach last summer. Naturally, I took my knitting needles and sat on a park bench in Huntington Beach. I soaked up the sun and knitted for hours. We should all take a moment for ourselves to connect and bond with people we care about and to do the things that we love to do.  These two friends are soaking in the sun and enjoying their time together, which was my intention in the concept of this design,” shares Le.

Taking a time out to find work life balance is important to Le who is a pharmacist by trade and initially took it upon herself to learn how to do graphic arts on her own without formal graphic arts school training, to get through the lack of having a budget to hire out for creative logos and materials for her small business. She finds ways to release through creating whether it is graphic arts or the journey that led her to the fiber arts community.

 “I love to create things with my hands.  I’m always learning and exploring different art forms and different ways to be creative. Designing and crafting are my creative outlets. I am new to the knitting community.  My knitting journey started when I wanted to hand knit beanies for my family as Christmas gifts.  I started searching “How To” YouTube videos and instantly fell in love with the fiber arts community.  The wealth of knowledge that the knitters were willing to share and the encouragement and support that the community had to offer was very motivational and inspiring.   After I knitted my first beanie, I wanted to learn more. Project after project, I learned new skills and mastered new techniques.  I found that knitting brought joy, peace, and tranquility to an otherwise busy day. Knitting is very rewarding and meditative,” explains Le.

Le won the pre-event bag design contest adhering to the rules and parameters which were judged by the council of the participating crawl yarn shops based on creativity, design, presentation and wow-factor.  Le’s winning design will come to life on a 2022 LA Yarn Crawl Commemorative Tote Bag, a 100% heavy cotton canvas event bag which is intended to be a vehicle for shop buttons for this year’s Yarn Crawl.  Le’s design will be printed on 800 bags distributed at the March 24-27, 2022 live event though the fifteen participating shops.  Le received a $200 All Shop Gift Certificate to use at any of the 15 participating yarn shops in the 2022 Yarn Crawl.

The very inspiration for her winning bag contest design entry definitely has Le hooked as she continued to create with yarn ever since that sunny summer day in Huntington Beach. Her creative outlet and newly found fiber arts community have fueled her to keep on knitting.

“Since then, I have finished the vest I knitted for my daughter and have many more projects lined up.  This will be the first L.A County Yarn Crawl that I will attend. I love L.A.!   I will try my best to visit all the shops as I think it is important to support small business. I will definitely use the prize money to buy more yarn, because one can never have enough,” shares Le.

Stefanie Le’s winning bag design featuring the wild and wooly Southern California vibe on a park bench will be a sought-after collectible item to commemorate the very significant benchmark milestone of CELEBRATING TEN YEARS.  However that is not the only new thing crawlers can expect as the L.A. County Yarn Crawl also will have commemorative first-time official Treasure Hunt to punctuate the occasion.

“Since 2022 is our tenth yarn crawl, we wanted to do something we’ve never done before and probably won’t do again. Running a bag contest and creating two special all-crawl pattern are those things which will make crawling around Los Angeles County even more fun this year,” states Maridee Dangcil, President of the L.A. County Yarn Crawl.

Traditionally every year since the Yarn Crawl’s inception, the shops give away free patterns as a regular feature of the Yarn Crawl using their featured yarn, which is the only yarn that each shop can have on sale during the event. This year the featured yarns will be available for sale at a 15 percent discount.   This first-time Treasure Hunt pattern giveaway is available in both knit and crochet and is on top of what the crawl regularly features as celebratory incentive to enjoy the crawling experience.

The patterns are available for download https://layarncrawl.org/pages/treasure-hunt-patterns.  Both of the patterns were created by the BUKU Yarns team in La Verne, which is just one of the participating shops in the San Gabriel Valley regional leg of the 2022 L.A. County Yarn Crawl.  The crochet pattern is called “Going on a Treasure Hunt Shawl” created by Lisa Martin and the knitting pattern is called “X Marks the Spot” by Amanda Rios, owner of BUKU Yarns. The objective with both patterns is to make the actual 143 mile Yarn Crawl experience extra fun by enabling crawlers to search for their treasure-trove of yarns during their crawl experience to find a variety of colors to make their project unique to who they are with the shops they visit.   The rectangular wrap shaped patterns are relatively easy to do calling for five different colored yarns.  The completed projects will be uniquely special for each crawler as they go about their treasure hunting through the shops, as no two crawlers will tackle the treasure hunt or do the Yarn Crawl in the exact same way.

Post-live event, the L.A. County Yarn Crawl’s Treasure Hunt does not have to end, as the event encourages crawlers to share what yarns they picked for their pattern along the crawl. Here they can connect by showing their projects in progress with their own yarn communities.   Upon completion of their Treasure Hunt projects crawlers can then plan to show off their finished end-products wearing them to the 11^th Celebration in 2023 returning to the shops where they purchased the pattern yarns.

This year’s participating 2022 L.A. County Yarn Crawl shops https://layarncrawl.org/pages/shops sprawled across L.A. include the following areas:  Downtown Los Angeles: Gather DTLA and The Little Knittery (Los Feliz); San Fernando Valley: L’Atelier on Ventura (Encino) and Valley Village’s The Altered Stitch (with The Yarnover Truck mobile appearance 03/24/22); The Westside: Wildfiber Studio (Santa Monica) and Jennifer Knits (Brentwood); South Bay: L’Atelier (Redondo Beach) and Inglewood’s The Knitting Tree L.A. (with The Yarnover Truck mobile appearance 03/26/22); Long Beach/Bellflower: Stitches in Time Yarn (Bellflower) and Long Beach’s Alamitos Bay Yarn Company under new ownership, (with The Yarnover Truck mobile appearance ­­03/25/22); San Gabriel Valley: Wollhaus (Pasadena), Yarnaholic™ Store & Boutique (Claremont), Phebie’s NeedleArt (Claremont), and in La Verne, BUKU Yarns (with The Yarnover Truck mobile appearance 03/27/22).

The 10^th L.A. Yarn Crawl will be bringing a mix of old and new to the event.  Returning will be the classic crawl popular passport prize promotion, where each of the fifteen shops will feature a $300 gift basket prize. To enter crawl participants will drop their completed passports with stamps from the Yarn Crawl sprawl of shops visited: https://layarncrawl.org/pages/about-the-la-yarn-crawl

The L.A. County Yarn Crawl’s group of unique shops are committed toward educating and teaching yarn crafts. The purpose of the event is to create awareness by bringing together the Los Angeles community in the fiber arts all while creating friendships, inspiring creativity, projects, and memories to last a lifetime. For event details, COVID safety protocol and more information on the L.A. County Yarn Crawl 2022 please go to https://layarncrawl.org/ or email layarncrawl@gmail.com  For all media interview and photo requests contact event publicist Stacey Kumagai of Media Monster Communications, Inc. at 818.506.8675 mediamonster@yahoo.com

 

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