Great Raveling: The Yarn Crawl at Wildfiber Studio

“Do you have your passport?” I was asked as I entered the wonderland of Wildfiber Studio last Saturday. While there was something otherworldly about the space—a synesthetically sensory playground of color and texture, Candyland without the corporate toothache—this was the wonderful and real-life Yarn Crawl. 

Every year in mid-May, twelve participating stores in L.A. County source yarn from around the world and present the latest in fiber technology (in the original sense) in trunk shows. The event draws craftspeople from near and far who collect stamps from each store to fill their “passports.”

A friendly volunteer named Wendy, whose mother and grandmother taught her to knit, led me towards the many “flavors of yarn.” There were cubbies filled with a “magic acrylic” made by a company in the U.K. that felt like the finest wool. Beautiful sweaters and shawls draped overhead—imagination crafted by hand into tangible, wearable art. In another corner, real wool skeins in every shade of exquisite blue-greens from the artisanal hand-dyed Sea Change spilled over a table. A squishy, fibrous version of the ocean.

The oldest known craft is leatherwork, followed by embroidery. A 5000 year-old pair of embroidered leather trousers hang in a museum;  patterned (colorwork) socks have been found in Egyptian tombs. Because writing as an art can feel so abstract, so separate from the idea of handiwork, I am drawn to people who use their hands to create and organizations that provide space and materials.

While arts funding and home economics classes have dwindled away from most city budgets and school curricula (shoutout to SMMUSD for supporting excellent and extensive arts programming!), we flock to places where people are hand-making in real time. These arts districts become destinations and events. 

Santa Monica boasts several arty pockets around the city. 14th Street is the de-facto arts branch of mid-city, with a cluster of storefronts focused on art restoration, interior design, a florist, Paint Lab, Santa Monica Studios film, and of course Wildfiber Studio —all but one owned and operated by women. They complement and compliment each other, sending customers back and forth.  

There has been a yarn shop at 1453 14th St E, Santa Monica for over 30 years. Before that, the building functioned as a laundry, with the metal divots in the floor to prove it. Cassie Tess was the owner of the building once it became a space for the material arts. Christened The Creative Space, classes ranged from polymer clay and felting to weaving and knitting. Mel Clark was one of the teachers and later purchased Wildfiber turning it into a yarn shop. In 2014, Claudia Seizer and Teri Artinyan started Wildfiber Studio. 

From the beginning, Claudia and Teri envisioned the store as an anchor for the community, an avenue to look forward and plan for the future, much like gardeners plant for next season’s harvest. In fact, Claudia feels like a farmer, knitting for the next season. “Even at the best of times, having a creative outlet is essential to well-being,” Claudia said. “How better to unwind than literally unwinding something?” She taught herself to knit 26 years ago. “Teri taught me to continental knit and crochet.” 

The space itself has always been precious in the community as an outlet for creative expression, hosting skill-building workshops that break an intimidating project into doable parts, such as “sweater shoulders” and “whipstitch tacked” cuffs. Everything is designed to be fun and empowering. “Yes, it’s mostly women, but there are some men and no one bats an eye,” Teri said, citing the lead in the TV show “Pushing Daisies” who knits crochets while he’s investigating a case. “All anyone needs is encouragement and support.” 

The store has a vibrant community outreach, hosting knit-ins at Palisades Park and partnering with Santa Monica Brew Works. But after the fires in Palisades, Wildfiber Studio became even more vital. In the aftermath, even more people were craving creative self-expression to heal and to connect with others. “Knitting and crocheting are calming, meditative,” Claudia said. When I shared that a family member quit smoking by teaching himself to crochet, and that we were all richer for it, both women nodded vigorously. “Crafting helps with any unhealthy addiction and with ADHD. Knitting and crochet are the original fidget spinners.” Teri learned to crochet in elementary school and started knitting when she lived in Portugal. She dropped it for a spell, but started up again two decades ago. “In my worst of times,” she said, “knitting has been my only solace.” 

“We thought, oh my god, people are losing their homes,” Alexis, a volunteer wearing a watermelon sweater she’d crocheted, said. “We’re dragons. We hoard so we knew that all of those precious hoards had gone up in smoke, too.” 

To offset those losses, Wildfiber immediately put together Yarn Relief Kits. Anyone could pick one up. Claudia and Teri contacted vendors for donations; some reached out unasked, wanting to help. Individuals sent yarn from all over the world. At this past January’s Vogue Knitting Live Event, a box filled to the brim with yarn and supplies for knitters in LA County who’d been affected by the fires, often accompanied by lovely notes from individuals and knitting circles. Wildfiber gave out a lot of yarn at the store and sent tons to stores located in Pasadena, Altadena and the Women’s Center Downtown. “As long as people are displaced, we will have yarn to give them.” Getting to the store from the Palisades continues to be a challenge: “With the PCH closed, it’s a two hour loop to get here, and not the fun kind of loop,” Claudia said. But for people who make the trek, it’s a welcome third-space. 

Alexis runs a thriving 45-member crochet club looking for third spaces. I suggested reaching out to the city to ask about using the Fairmount Library. Taught the art by her Aleutian grandmother, Alexis continued her craft education through the Crochet Lab at the Pomona library. Currently more than halfway through a 100 Days of Mini-Crochet challenge, she excitedly showed me her fantastic 2025 entry for the LA County Fair, as well as her award-winning “picnic honoring seven food cultures in LA” from 2024. 

To help heal the fire-ravaged county, 1200+ granny squares were crocheted and stitched together, all by hand, to create a giant blanket as a symbol of unity + diversity. Inspired by a similar project in Mexico, the Crochet Community Canopy Project was the first of its kind sponsored by a county fair. 

“Sharing craft spaces with others is like being an only child who wants a sibling. Instant family. I’ve been invited to people’s homes whose last names I didn’t know, just because we both crochet,” Alexis said. Big sister “mud-crafter” collective Ceramic Coven generously shared their table with Alexis her first year at the County Fair. This year, she’s paying it forward, buying her own table and inviting a new artist to join her.

Jennifer, another member of the Wildfiber team, is “multi-stitchual”: she knits and crochets, spins wool, drop spindles, embroiders, cross-stitches, machine/hand sews, including teaching herself historical sewing techniques like those done in couture. Her grandmother taught her to embroider and machine-sew; her mom got her into crocheting early; Teri taught her to knit. “It’s both homey and inspiring seeing our own work around the store.”

She first came to Wildfiber because they were one of the few places that sold roving, the large rolls of fibre “drafted” into spinning wheels and twisted into single-ply. “Getting familiar with the process from sheep to sweater gives you a sense of what it takes to make clothing.” It’s almost impossible to make an affordable garment in the States. “Maybe you can grow the fibre here, here, but you can’t dye it.” There are knitting machines to mass-produce, but crochet machines don’t exist. “Anything you find in Target for $20 someone made by hand and was paid very, very little.” Jennifer has made articles of clothing from soup to nuts, though she’s fleeced only once. “Washing wool in an apartment is not fun.” She laughed. “I found a small mill in Montana that does it old school.” 

Her advice for any would-be crafter? “Make friends with your local craft store,” she said. “We often serve as a catch-all.” Some donations are more cumbersome than others. More than once she’s been surprised by floor looms and spinning wheels left outside the store because people didn’t know what else to do with them! 

Jennifer mixes ancient crafts with new technology. She often knits while in VR chatrooms with friends, using a device that helps her look down at her hands. Mixtures of old and new tech keep popping up,” she said. “Many Animal Crossing avatars wear handmade-looking sweaters, which inspired players to make their own human-sized ones. She suggested my son get into crochet through terrain-making and his love of melee weapons. 

If I can convince him to try his hand, there are classes available at Wildfiber with spaces available, though a unique Sachiko embroidery class filled quickly. A customer who saw me scribbling notes summed things up perfectly: “There’s nothing cozier than a handmade sweater.”

Wildfiber Studio is open every day except Monday. Watch this space for upcoming pieces on the other women-owned 14th Street businesses.