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Knotty Habit members share their love of knitting, crocheting

Edna Strickler (left) admires a crocheted hat made by Linda Clark. The two are members of the Knotty Habit yarn club, a group of knitters and crocheters who meet monthly at the Andrews-Dallas Township Public Library.
Edna Strickler (left) admires a crocheted hat made by Linda Clark. The two are members of the Knotty Habit yarn club, a group of knitters and crocheters who meet monthly at the Andrews-Dallas Township Public Library. Photo by Cindy Klepper.

Originally published Dec. 22, 2014.

Nikki Biehl started knitting in high school.

“We made our boyfriends stockings,” she says. “I had friends who liked to knit, and we all did it.”

And, yes, the boys wore the socks, she says.

Now retired after a career in education, Biehl is still working in yarn. And once a month, she settles into a chair at the Andrews-Dallas Township Public Library to enjoy the companionship of other devotees of the craft.

“It’s kind of nice to get together with people who share a hobby that you have,” says Sandra Denney, a fellow member of the library’s “Knotty Habit” knit and crochet club.

The club, which meets monthly, reappeared in November after being put on hold while an expansion project at the library was completed.

After the dust settled, the library board — which includes several knitters and crocheters — wanted to bring it back, says Nancy Disbro, director of the Andrews library.

Nearly a dozen yarn aficionados showed up at 9 o’clock on a Saturday morning for the first session, Disbro says, “and they were here until we closed at 1 o’clock.”

The sessions, Denney says, are a nice way to see what kinds of projects others are working on. She was there with her school-aged daughter, Rylee Denney, who says she started crocheting just a couple of months ago. Rylee has already crocheted a chain for the Christmas tree, and she’s now working on a scarf — learning from her mom as she goes.

“I’ve been crocheting since I was a little girl,” Sandra Denney says. “My grandma crocheted, and my mom crocheted.”

The handing down of the art from generation to generation was a theme echoed by many of the other “Knotty Habit” participants.

“I started when I was little,” Biehl says. “My aunt taught me.”

“My aunt showed me how to crochet back in the ’70s,” says Edna Strickler. “She taught me a granny square, and that’s basically what I do.”
But for all the tradition involved in working with yarn, there’s also room for technology. Online resources play a major role in figuring out the intricacies of new stitches and the discovery of new patterns.

“YouTube has helped me a lot on this, because you can back it up and watch it again, and again and again,” says Linda Clark.

Clark started working with yarn last fall so she could make herself a ruffled scarf — and she was hooked.

“I got on YouTube and found all these beautiful things I could do if I’d just learn how to do it,” she says.

Julie Theobald was using a pattern she’d found online to make a scarf, and the Denneys say they’re up for trying “whatever we can find on the Internet.”

“Before the Internet, my mom would buy magazines,” Sandra Denney says. “She had piles of magazines, and sometimes we go through those.”

Mary Scheffer says she too inherited magazines full of patterns from her mother and was working on a crocheted shawl according to a pattern she found in a book.

Strickler was working on Christmas stockings and slippers, two items she’s favored over the years.

“My kids would rather get a Christmas stocking than anything,” she says.

A granny square is the main pattern in the stockings, she says, and for practicality’s sake she’s increased the size of the square to make a bigger stocking.

“Originally, the squares were real little,” she says. “You can’t get anything in them.”

The Denneys, along with several other club members, were working on hats to be donated to Andrews Elementary School. But Sandra Denney says she’s produced a variety of items over the years — a stuffed turkey made out of granny squares (It’s really cute,” she says), along with cozies for lip balm and hand sanitizers.

Scheffer’s also working on hats for the schools. She’s previously given some of her hats to the Lutheran Hospital for use by patients being treated for cancer, kind of a payback for the hats she received when she had chemotherapy there. She says she’s made more than 200 hats over three years.

Scheffer was originally a knitter but long ago made the switch to crocheting.

“I haven’t knitted since I started crocheting over 40 years ago,” Scheffer says. “I found that crocheting was a lot faster.”

Jody Davenport, on the other hand, recently made the switch from crocheting to knitting.

“I’ve crocheted for years and I got tired of it,” she says. “I wanted a new challenge, so I taught myself to knit.”

Biehl says crocheting keeps her busy in the evenings. Over her 27 years of teaching, she’d grown accustomed to staying busy by grading papers in the evenings. Now that she’s just working as a substitute teacher, the papers are someone else’s responsibility.

“I have to do something with my hands at night,” she says.

Clark says crocheting is “relaxing,” as does Strickler.

“I love crocheting; it’s so relaxing,” Strickler says.

“Knotty Habit” is one of a series of non-literary programs that are growing at the Andrews library.

After the first of the year, Disbro plans to launch a new group that will give members a forum to trade organizational tips and set goals for “keeping up with life.”

She also has groups for teens and tots. Her favorite, though, is “Time Out,” which keeps toddlers occupied at the library while their parents get to work on crafty activities that will keep the youngsters occupied at home.

“This is my selfish programming,” says Disbro, the mother of a two-year-old.

“I think libraries are becoming more community centers,” she says. “They’re not just for checking out books.”