It's no yarn:
Students embrace
knitting

By Jessica Edwards

Knitting is enjoying a local renaissance, and some of Haines’ youngest residents are among its most avid practitioners.

Haines School students carry colorful projects through the halls and knit in class while teachers read aloud. Youths teach parents to knit in an after-school program.

“I think lot of kids like it because they have an idea (for a project) in their heads,” said fourth-grader Dawson Evenden of knitting’s appeal.

That original idea morphed when translated by knitting needles into yarn, he said. “The cool thing is it usually comes out different. It changes the idea in your head.”

Evenden, who got mother Leslie and seven-year-old sister Marirose hooked on knitting, is collaborating with classmate Charlie Bower on a pair of knit pants.

School librarian Linda Moyer estimated about 60 children in the school were actively knitting.Moyer has helped perpetuate the new rage; last February she started the after-school program “Nifty Knitters,” which attracts as many as 30 knitters each week, including students of all ages, parents and seniors. 

But knitting already had a foothold in the Haines School. Moyer’s new after school program tapped a skill many students learned as second graders.

Second-grade teacher Jeanne Kitayama has integrated knitting into her second-grade Waldorf School-influenced curriculum. Students learn to knit through one-on-one instruction and practice during read-aloud time.

Kitiyama said the goal of knitting was to work on cross-patterning, or connecting left and right brain hemispheres, and to help children relax while socializing. “In the Waldorf literature, a child being able to untangle a piece of yarn is like untangling thoughts.”

Moyer attributed the new popularity of knitting at school to the fact more work and play happened these days in front of a computer.

“I do think in some ways it’s in response to a world where everything’s virtual,” said Moyer. “It’s very therapeutic. You make something you are proud of – and you get to play with fun yarn.”

Nifty Knitters this year made knitting needles, hats, scarves, washcloths, headbands, and purses for sale at holiday bazaar, she said. “The kids were so excited when they sold one of their items.”

Volumes of research show knitting connects left and right brain hemispheres and has a calming, focusing effect on students with autism, learning disabilities, or attention deficit disorder, she said.

Moyer said she’d seen Haines students improve reading, math, and handwriting skills by increasing the ability to focus. “It does really seem to help a lot of kids,” she said.

Ten-year-old Madeline Andriesen, a fourth grader, has been knitting three years. She’s taught more than 30 people to knit, including mom Lisa Andriesen, student teacher Tiffany Dewitt, and classmates, a fact she relates with obvious pride.

“I think it helps me concentrate on different things.” She said the complicated patterns she took on made her think hard about the task at hand. “Maybe it helps with hand coordination, too.”

Andriesen said her favorite project so far is a shawl she’s knitting of white and purple yarn. She knits gifts for family, most recently a purse for her mother’s birthday and an elephant for her sister.

In Moyer’s desk in the school library is a file of knitting-related articles, including one about Connecticut College professor Ruth Grahn, who teaches knitting on the first day of her behavioral neuroscience class.

Grahn uses knitting as a way to talk about different types of memory and the way new experiences can change the brain. “We talk about plasticity and how the cortical space alloted to a body part can change with experience,” Grahn said in an interview with her college’s magazine. “Those students who keep knitting can imagine their motor cortex changing as their skill improves.”

Besides educational contexts, Moyer said knitting had gained credence as an occupational therapy, as a therapy for Alzheimer’s patients, and in treating trauma from violence and war. 

Nifty knitters teacher and mentor Maggie Stern said the program also taught students social skills. The group has “conversation rules,” such as not throwing yarn, not talking negatively about others, asking for help politely.

Beyond basic etiquette, however, Stern said knitting eases social tensions.

“In a social setting, there’s nervous energy. It’s easier when you have knitting to take up that energy.” Stern said she found students socialized more comfortably when everyone was individually focused on a project.

The same was true for many adults, she said. At parties, Stern said she often became restless without a knitting project.

Likewise, at a Sunday women’s knitting group, there was relatively little nervous eating while everyone’s hands were occupied. “Everyone notices we eat much less when we’re knitting,” Stern said.

She said she thought knitting had great potential as a method to help smokers quit using tobacco.

 

Nifty Knitters is supported by donations of yarn, needles and books from the community. For information, or to donate materials, contact Moyer at 766-6733.