Scarves, blankets, granny squares and more — the sky is the limit at Lafayette’s yarn club.
Venture into the Keefe Hall Commons on a Friday afternoon and you will find students working on new projects and building a community to make fiber arts more accessible to students.
“I think we all have a grandma inside of us,” said Danielle Lindsley ’25, the club’s president. “It’s hard to get into knitting and crocheting if you don’t, but I’d say it’s a pretty accurate stereotype for the most part, although everyone is capable of being in the fiber arts community.”
Abby Schlotterbeck ’24, who joined the club this academic year, said that she began to attend meetings after picking up crochet as a hobby.
“I love it because I know that getting more young people into crocheting brings about a lot more perspective,” Schlotterbeck said. “I follow a lot of people who make crochet work … and I don’t really see it as being in a grandma era. I think it’s more like getting in touch with those older forms of expression and making it new again.”
During the club’s meetings, members talk about their individual projects or discuss working towards collective goals. The yarn club board uses its Student Government funds to supply the materials needed to create projects.
Yarn Club is contributing to Knots of Love, a program that provides handmade blankets and hats for cancer patients and babies in the NICU.
“I think Knots for Love is a great opportunity to get more people into crocheting and also for the crochet to have a purpose, which is providing these beanies for people who are in the hospital,” said Elise Trocker ‘26, the treasurer of the yarn club.
The club has also collaborated with other clubs such as OUT Lafayette to make pride flags and banners and the Arts Society to paint tote bags to house its fiber art supplies. Learning to create fiber art has even extended beyond the club’s usual meeting hours.
“I’ve tried to teach a couple of my residents how to crochet also because I am an RA,” Schlotterbeck said. “I had a few of them come to Yarn Club at the beginning.”
Whether working on a project for charity or learning to crochet for the first time, Yarn Club provides a space for students to escape their busy academic lives.
“It’s just a really nice break from the hectic, fast-paced life of school,” Trocker said. “You can just put everything on pause for an hour, sit down, listen to some music and just do whatever your craft is.”
