Club inherits yarn supply, knits for the poor

Sarah Siegel Life Editor

In 2006, Vassar French Professor emerita Adrienne Hytier left an usual legacy: a house full of yarn and half-finished sweaters. Now a new student group, Knights of Commuknitty, will be putting the yarn to use by making blankets and cold weather clothes for the needy.

Knights of Commuknitty co-founders Sara Wilf ’10 and Katie Mancher ’10 both said that they have always liked to knit. “We were talking about it one day and then we were thinking about getting a group of people together and it just evolved—we could do this for some cause,” Mancher said.

Mancher and Wilf then met with veteran knitters Ilyse Kramer ’08 and Research Librarian Gretchen Lieb. Lieb tried to begin a socially conscious knitting circle six years ago, but the group failed because of scheduling issues. When she found out about the yarn collection, she thought she could re-start the project and got in touch with Kramer, who is the president of Hunger Action. When the four put their heads together, Knights of Commuknitty was born, with help from a grant from the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life.

The Knights will be donating their knitting projects to non-profits such as Project Linus, an organization that collects and redistributes blankets, sweaters, scarves and gloves locally and nationally.

Socially conscious knitting has actively grown in recent years. According to their Web sites Project Linus and international organizations such as Afghans for Afghans have distributed hundreds of thousands of knitted pieces to those in need. One knitting blogger, the Yarn Harlot, has raised more than $400,000 for Doctors Without Borders.

Students at other institutions have also taken up their knitting needles—both Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at San Fransisco have successful knitting groups. And Lieb noted that knitting’s growing popularity isn’t confined to women. “Recently it’s not as gender codified,” she said, “and I’ve been shocked and surprised.”

The Knights’ first project will be to have each member knit squares that will then be sewn together to make a large blanket for Project Linus. The first project will be a bit of an homage to Hytier. While exploring the five garbage bags worth of unused yarn Mancher explained, “We found this little six by seven patch—that will be the first square in the blanket we make; so she has posthumous participation in our group.”

Knights of Commuknitty meets every Sunday at 5 p.m. in the Faculty Parlor, and everyone is welcome. Wilf and Mancher stressed that you don’t have to know how to knit; lessons will be available, and you don’t have to attend each meeting. You can work on projects as your schedule allows. But Lieb asked that people be mindful of the spirit of the project. “What I hope is that people will understand is that the whole point is to have it go out in the world…not to your mom or aunt or sister, but to people we don’t know.”