Crawl taking all on a crafty trek
SANDPOINT — Explore different crafts and enter to win a gift basket at an event taking place Sept. 30, hosted by four locally owned craft stores in the county.
At the upcoming Panhandle Craft Crawl, participants will be given a passport that allows them to travel to each of the four stores to view a 15-minute demonstration and collect a stamp. Once they reach the final store, they can use their full passport to enter to win a basket filled with craft materials and merchandise worth $300 or more. This time around, the basket that holds the goodies will be a handmade bag crocheted by a local artist.
Sand Creek Quilting, Selkirk Quilts, The Yarn Table, and Twilight Fibers and Yarn will be the featured stores.
The now bi-annual craft crawls started when Darlene Girton, Sand Creek Quilting owner, relocated from Cedar Street Bridge to Ponderay. With the move came the challenge of less exposure, so Girton came up with an idea that would help local craft businesses connect with community members.
“I started looking around at the crafting businesses and thought, 'How amazing is this that we have four dedicated crafty businesses between yarn and fabric and quilting and education right here in this little tiny town? This should make us the craftiest town in North Idaho.'”
Through her business and the event, Girton is able to form relationships, which she is passionate about.
“It’s what fills my cup; it’s what gives me joy,” Girton said.
Since its beginnings, the craft crawl event has grown, with more and more people joining each of the three times the stores have hosted it, Blythe Nudelman, owner of Twilight Fibers and Yarn, said.
Around a hundred people per store participated in a past craft crawl, with more expected this time.
The event will take place Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Participants can start at any of the four shops to pick up their passports and begin the fun.
“We are all little mom-and-pop shops, and we’re all extremely collaborative about how we do this event — in that if one of us wins, we all win,” Girton said.