Knitters Unite: and Drop in at School Lunchtime

Greg guides Abby Lawson through the intricacies of "casting on."

Greg White, Orcas Island surveyor and dedicated knitter, can be found with his knitting cohorts on Wednesday and Fridays at Orcas Elementary School during lunchtime.

Greg has partnered with the school and Cheryl Jackson of Poppies Yarn Store in Eastsound, to supply the young knitters with basic, good-quality materials. When the two of them approached Elementary/Middle School Principal Kyle Freeman with the idea of a lunchtime knitting circle, he urged them to go ahead.

Greg and his wife Tess had learned spinning when they lived in rural Oregon, and he began knitting in earnest after moving to Orcas Island. He found it difficult to learn from books, and his knitting really took off after taking a “soft knitting” class from Cheryl at Poppies. He also learned from Bill Gincig’s mother, Edith, when she lived on the island.

On a field trip last year, Greg was working on a project and Enzo Thixton took an interest. Then with this year’s historically rainy field trip to the Olympic Park Institute, Greg purchased several sets of knitting needles and introduced several of the 6th-graders there in knitting. With a little push from his wife, Tess, Greg started the group earlier this month.

The drop-in group is designed for kids in grades 4-6 and has begun with a healthy group of about 15, novices and practiced knitters — among them Payton Boehm, Monica Connell,  Zoni Darnell, Adia Dolan, Jordan Jefferson, Abbie Lawson, Kai MacGregor, Devon Mann,  Chela Scheckel-Mohler, Jessica Nichols, Phaedra Osborn, Katerina Schiller, Enzo Thixton, Meg Waage and Erin White.

Chela Scheckel-Mohler counts her stitches as Cheryl looks on.

So on Wednesday and Friday lunchtime, in a comfortable “living room”  corner at the back of the library, industrious young knitters can be found working on scarves, hats and more advanced projects. Cheryl and Greg start the kids out and guide them through knitting challenges, but mostly the kids knit on their own — and talk.

Greg is pleased that the knitting circle is taking off in the way he had envisioned — as an alternative to the unstructured lunchtime socialization that many kids find difficult, with the kids helping each other, talking to each other and having fun.

“Knitting also helps kids focus and learn,” he says, and mentions Cat Bohrdi, a former Middle School teacher from Friday Harbor who used knitting as a classroom activity to develop her students’ concentration.

“Nothing you make will ever be perfect,” Greg says. Cheryl agrees, and adds that “Whatever comfort level the kids are at is where they’re learning.” The kids will start off with easier projects, “but it has to interesting — something they want to do — to keep them going,” she says.

Cheryl had learned knitting as  a child  when she lived in Switzerland for a year. But she came to Orcas to get away from the “corporate world” in Los Angeles, in search of a more grounded place to raise her daughter.

“I’ve been pushing knitting for years,” Cheryl says. Her income from the yarn store, co-owned with Jan Renzelman, is supplemented by stints as a substitute teacher and school bus driver. “Knitting is a social thing, and it brings us back to reality, down to earth.”

Sponsors are being sought to provide the young knitters with the purchase of a pair of bamboo knitting needles and a skein of yarn.  The basic “kit” of a pair of needles and a skein of Paton’s Canadiana yarn in a project bag, would cost about $10 after a discount from Poppies.

Contributions of lunchtime help or “Kit” cost can be made through Greg at 376-3036, or Cheryl at 376-2686.