Fiber artists, their friends and their families are invited to the sand this weekend, as Los Angeles fiber artist Alexis Kavros hosts the first LA Fiber Clubs Beach Takeover, a free community gathering at Will Rogers State Beach.
The event begins at 11 a.m. Sunday, July 12, near Lifeguard Tower No. 7, just north of the snack bar at 15800 Pacific Coast Highway, and will continue into the afternoon. Admission is free, and organizers say all fiber clubs, fiber artists and their friends and family are welcome. Attendees are encouraged to bring a project, a snack to share and the usual beach gear, such as sunscreen, chairs and umbrellas. Games, prizes and snacks will be provided.
Parking on Temescal Canyon is free, and a paid beach lot that accepts credit cards is also available. There are several beach restrooms nearby, along with a hot-food stand called Beach Side Cafe, Kavros said.
The gathering grew out of a private tradition. Kavros founded a low-key Los Angeles crochet club a few years ago and has thrown a party with games and prizes twice a year ever since. This year, when she asked members where to hold their midyear celebration, the group voted for the beach over a Mid-City park.
"Since I won't have to borrow chairs from my neighbors and figure out how to fill over a dozen people into one room in my apartment, I decided to open the invitation to all fiber clubs and artists," she said.
Kavros is the founder of Remy A Crafty Hedgehog, a small, woman-owned business focused on fiber craft and whimsy. A Santa Monica native, she competes in crochet competitions, sells her pieces and patterns, and teaches the craft to others. She has taught with the Santa Monica Library, demonstrated at the Los Angeles County Fair and is a member of the Greater Los Angeles Spinning Guild, where she is learning to spin yarn. With her husband, Andrew, she also produces stop-motion videos featuring her crochet.
Her path into organizing began with a feeling she has been chasing ever since. After attending her first LA Yarn Crawl, she said, she was left in tears at the end of the weekend, having spent three days among people who shared her craft.
"I felt like I finally found my people. I felt so seen. And I wasn't ready for that feeling to end," she said.
That desire to recreate the experience led her to start her club, which she launched by reaching out to strangers on Reddit. She found that while Los Angeles has many knitting groups, crochet clubs were scarce, and the idea drew an enthusiastic response. Since the first meeting, the club has gathered across the city, taking field trips to museum fiber exhibits and carpooling to yarn crawls. It charges no fees and requires no attendance.
Kavros hopes the beach event helps counter what she describes as a lonely side of a popular hobby. Fiber arts, she said, can be isolating because the work is fundamentally solitary, even in a group.
"Even when we are all sitting together we are each making something alone and simply sitting beside someone doing the same," she said, adding that many makers stay tethered to their couches simply because packing up supplies feels daunting.
She sees gatherings like this one as a chance to build a "third place" where adults can form friendships that are otherwise hard to make, especially among those who work remotely. She said she hopes a first-time attendee who arrives alone leaves feeling understood, and perhaps with the phone number of a nearby crafter and plans to meet for coffee.
Prizes for the event are sponsored in part by Yarn Over Hook, a free social platform for crocheters that Kavros works with as a co-host of the weekly YouTube show "Stitches!" The two are also leading Summer Stash Bash, a drive to crochet 1,000 soap sacks, fill each with a bar of soap and donate them to local charities. Kavros said the effort blew past its goal at the halfway point.
"We are so excited to sponsor prizes for LA Fiber Clubs Beach Takeover, crochet community is what we are all about at Yarn Over Hook," said Sammi, head of video production and lead instructor with Yarn Over Hook. "We strive to offer digital connection to crochet artists around the world, and anytime that can happen in the real world we are all for it!"
Kavros said she hopes the takeover becomes an annual tradition. Additional details are posted on Instagram at @remyacraftyhedgehog.