By Rebecca Lally, Year 12
Every Thursday lunchtime, Ms. Shippey’s classroom fills with Year 12 students for this year’s knitting club. Students settle down with borrowed needles and balls of wool to work on their projects and chat with their friends. At the helm are Hazel Fricksa, Emily Purvis and Charlotte Seager, all Year 12 students, and Ms. Shippey – staff supervisor, resident knitting expert, and surrogate grandmother to the club’s 40-something members.
Hazel says they started the club hoping to “get people off their technology and doing something wholesome and inherently good such as knitting,” [the author maintains one could knit for evil!] and as an opportunity for students to “learn a new skill and connect with their friends during lunch time.” Were they surprised by knitting club’s success? “Totally!” Hazel told The Update, “We thought it would just be us and some friends but lots more people signed up once we emailed the grade, and new people join literally every week.”
Most members were completely new to the craft, but many are now hooked! People get different things out of the club: it is of course CAS creativity, but knitting can be a social activity, a respite from the stresses of school, and very rewarding when you don the item you have worked on for so long. “For me learning to knit has been great because it’s something to talk to my grandma and great aunt about. It’s nice showing them what I’ve made, the stitches I’ve learned, what I’m working on,” said one member.
Knitting club’s current project is knitting children’s hats for gift boxes. Some members plan to make some knitted outfits for the Fashion Show – a project which will need to get underway as soon as possible to be ready by March!
The Update 