Samir Iydroose Photos.
Jessica Park had finally found the right yarn. She wanted one that was soft and thick, and none of the yarns in the “fair amount” of yarn she had at home fit the bill. The rising freshman at Hopkins School had found the pattern for making a cardigan on YouTube two months ago, but hadn’t started making it until she found a speckled brown and red yarn provided by the Teen Crochet Club at the Ives Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library.
Park said she comes for the “good vibes,” especially on days when she has nothing to do. “It is a library so it isn’t very noisy, and there is nice music, and supplies if I need them,” she said.
Park and her family have been regulars at the summer crochet club, which is now in its second year. Hosted by crochet aficionado and teen librarian Emily Raymond, the club provides crochet supplies, instruction on how to crochet, and a pleasant atmosphere. It lasts from 3 to 5 p.m. each Thursday.
There may be one more meeting in the summer, in the final week of August, but Raymond had yet to decide. The club will continue into the school year, but will be on Wednesdays in the same time slot.
It is free to enter and open to everyone. It is made possible by donations and a portion of the programming funds. Raymond said she has made donations from her personal “yarn stash,” and tries to keep the spending for the program under 100 dollars. The turnout is usually three to ten people.
Raymond said she has been crocheting for the past four years. She started crocheting after “falling victim to Instagram ads” and purchasing a kit from Woobles, a company that makes tutorials for beginners on how to do amigurumi, a Japanese type of crochet where you make little stuffed animals.
The first thing she ever crocheted was a dinosaur named Fred, who lives on the edge of her desk. She was working on the top of a multicolored dinosaur during the club, who would also be named Fred. “They’re all Fred,” she said.
“I was looking for something to do with my hands, after my father passed,” she said. “I’d never held a hook before, but [crochet] is a great way to deal with life.”
Raymond has since transitioned to making things she can wear, with her current home project being a shawl made of granny squares. Granny squares are a classic crochet technique, which Park is also using to make her cardigan.
Raymond said the teens who come to the club work on a variety of things, but generally gravitate towards amigurumi. “Most people like making little dudes,” she said.
Andy Rossetti, a Hamden resident and rising freshman at the Sound School, wanted to go to events to “get used to New Haven” before starting school. He and his mom came to the crochet club last week, and they learned how to crochet.
In the week between the clubs, Rossetti crocheted a long chain, which he promptly undid upon arriving at the teen center, so he could use the yarn to make an amigurumi figure. He chose one of the Woobles patterns that Raymond had laid out on the table: Wally, the Brachiosaurus. Raymond started the project with a “magic ring,” which she assured him was the hardest part of the project.
“I chose this yarn because it looks kind of like cotton candy,” he said, gesturing to a ball of yarn of pastel pinks and blues and yellows. “I chose Wally because I want to make a stuffed animal, and he looks kind of like my dog, Ladybug.” Ladybug is a one-year-old chocolate Labrador.
Rossetti said he had tried to learn knitting, but quit, preferring crochet because “there's a hook and it only uses one hand, so it is easier for me.”
He said he aspires to make a scarf, “to get cozy in the winter,” and take his crocheting skills “to the next level.”
Throughout the club, Raymond repeated one of her favorite adages: “The first step to get good at anything is sucking at it.”
This article comes from the ninth and current cohort of the Arts Council's Youth Arts Journalism Initiative (YAJI). From June 29 through August 21, YAJI students pitch, report, write and edit stories with Arts Paper Editor Lucy Gellman, Program Assistants Abiba Biao and Grayce Howe and Mentor Ruby Szekeres. Samir Iydroose is a rising junior at Hamden High School.