Quarantine created many new hobbies for people: making sourdough bread, yoga, painting, drawing and countless others. But for one group of friends, it started a passion that led to the creation of the Crochet Club.

Despite being named for crochet, the Crochet Club also has finger crocheters and knitters regularly visiting room 370. Crochet is a fiber art where you make loops out of yarn with a hook, and combine those loops together to create something. The club, which is advised by Statistics teacher Danielle Theissen, has welcomed both experienced crocheters and works to teach those who want to learn.

Co-founder and senior Jaime Khynes said that starting crochet was hard and it was especially difficult to watch others crochet with ease while she struggled.

“When I started out it was kind of frustrating,” Khynes said. “Unless you’ve knitted or something, [it is difficult to] put the loop in and move the string around in weird ways. It’s just a different skill you have to learn.”

The club was also co-founded by seniors Yenna Paik and Violet O’Shea. Paik and O´Shea began crocheting during the pandemic after being nudged by Khynes. Paik said it maintained their friendship while apart.

“It was really helpful to have something to do [to] also connect even if we weren’t able to be there together,” Paik said.

Paik said that the hand positioning was hard to get down.

“At one point I was really lazy with the way I held my hand and that made me really frustrated because I wasn’t able to manipulate the things the way I wanted to,” Paik said. “You can do whatever you want to the material, but, just personally for me, I had a hard time getting myself to be able to manipulate it.”

O’Shea said that the hand positions for crochet eventually clicked for her.

“At one point when you’re learning it, it’s just going to click and then I feel like after that it’s pretty easy to learn new skills within crocheting,” O’Shea said.

After deciding to create the club, Khynes said that they found many people who resonated with what the club wanted to do.

“We just were at the club fair and we were like, ‘oh we’re here to crochet and we just want to build a community.’ It’s not like we’re going to be doing assignments or anything like that, we just want a nice group of people who want to enjoy some art and relax,” Khynes said. “So it wasn’t hard to find people.”

Now that they have learned to crochet, Paik said that she, Khynes and O’Shea spend time in their club teaching newcomers the skills they learned or creating a space for seasoned crocheters to go about their different crochet projects.

“It kind of depends on where people are at,” Paik said. “Sometimes we get a bunch of people who want to learn. It really depends on the week and who’s there, but we have a pretty consistent group of people who just come and crochet every week and they just do their own thing. We just give them a room and [materials] depending on what they need.”

While Paik said that crochet is a great stress reliever, she also said that crochet is a versatile art, being able to make anything from bows for dogs to stuffed animals to tapestries for wall decor.

“Crochet can be so many things for so many different people,” Paik said. “And, honestly, it can be whatever you want it to be.”