Knitting club creates partnership with newly formed book club.
Artwork by Rebecca Holt
The return of the knitting club, spearheaded by Sudi Stodola (TJ’s hardworking librarian) gave rise to another club this year that will stimulate the minds of its members as they knit.
“We had some girls who wanted to start a literature club, and then the knitting club talked about how nice it would be if we could be talking about books while we were doing our knitting,” Stodola explained. “So we decided since we had a need for a book club, and since the knitting club wanted to talk about books too, then we could just combine it and call it: Knit and Lit Club.”
The knitting club is also continuing its involvement in various charity projects throughout the year, and new ideas are constantly brought forward. “In November we will revisit our Warm Up America project, and with Warm Up America what we do is knit squares. We have simple patterns available for anyone who wants to participate,” said Stodola. “You donate your squares and I take them down to the craft store where other volunteers knit the squares into quilts for the homeless.” Stodola revived the project after a good amount of success in previous years, and she has already made plans for other charity work, such as knitting caps for premature babies.
Stodola further revealed that the book club will also be included in volunteer and recycling and “green craft” projects. “One project that we’re thinking of, is doing a drive to collect plastic bags from newspapers because if you cut them into strips you can turn them into balls of yarn-like material, and you can knit a tote bag for shopping.”
Stodola started the knitting club the first year she arrived at TJ three years ago, after transferring from Merrill Middle School. Prior to that she taught freshman composition at Metro State College of Denver and Colorado University, Denver. “I went back for my Masters in Library Science because I was tired of teaching English,” said Stodola. “I found that I liked being a librarian so much more than I ever liked being an English teacher. I’m really surprised it took me this long to figure it out.”
Even though the book club is still in the planning stages, some students in the club expressed their interest in reading Jane Austin for their first novels. “Right now we’ve got three girls reading three different Jane Austin books, so our first meeting will be to hammer down which Jane Austin books to talk about,” Stodola explained. “Because some people are reading Emma and some people are reading Pride and Prejudice, and since people are already reading, we may just talk about the differences between the two and what we think of the two books.”
Any Spartan who would like to join the Knit and Lit Club, meetings will be held Tuesdays and Thursdays after school from 3-4 pm. “What we do is on Tuesdays is we do just the knitting. This is the best day to learn if you haven’t knitted before, and then on Thursdays it’s the book club (the knitting, of course, is optional),” said Stodola. “So those of us who still like to knit will probably hang out and knit or crochet while we’re talking about the books. The people who come just for the books can just eat popcorn and talk about books.”
