Tips for Happy Crawling

The Rose City Yarn Crawl is coming up fast - it'll be here before you know it for four days of fiber celebration March 7-10. The festivities mean thousands of visitors through the doors of your favorite Portland area yarn shops... so some things will definitely work differently than usual that weekend!

The following is from the Rose City Yarn Crawl's website. It has great tips for know what to expect during the Crawl!

Tips for Happy Crawling

The Rose City Yarn Crawl is a very busy and exciting few days! To keep things flowing as smoothly as possible, some things you’re used to will work differently at our participating shops during the crawl. Thank you for understanding!

• Many shops close early on the Wednesday before the crawl to set up. Shops may also close early Sunday night to clean up. In between, many shops have extended hours. Check the shop pages or call your LYS to confirm special crawl hours.
• As eager as all the shops are to help everyone who walks through their doors, several thousand guests during just four days mean wait times and lines will be much longer than usual. Imagine a huge birthday party at which you have a fantastic time but may not get to spend as much time as usual with the birthday girl.
• If you need intensive help with a project, consider waiting until after the crawl. Staff members will be doing their very best to help as many people as possible and may not have time to sit down extensively with one person.
• Occasionally, some smaller shops may need to temporarily restrict occupancy to adhere to fire safety regulations. Better safe than sorry!
• If you’d like to try to avoid crowds, evenings and Sundays are usually less busy than other days and times during the crawl. However, they’re still likely to be much busier than an average day at your LYS.
• Due to space and time constraints, shops cannot wind yarn during the crawl. This enables staff members to help more people more quickly, allows some shops to set up extra registers to reduce lines, and avoids many-hours-long waits for winding, lost bags, and chaos.
• Similarly, some shops will be unable to print Ravelry in-store pattern purchases during the crawl.
• Shops may rearrange to better accommodate large crowds during the crawl. Tables, chairs, sofas, and other resting spots you’re used to may be unavailable during the crawl.