The LSU Crochet Club weaves together friends, community and a centuries-old craft to create an environment for students to meet new people and pick up a new hobby.
The club, founded in the fall of 2022, is a space for students to both connect over their shared interest in crocheting and give back to the community. But the club is not just for crocheters — anyone with an interest in fiber arts as a whole is welcome to join.
“We try to gather a bunch of fiber artists, not just crochet,” said Naimah Frazier, a junior English major and president of Crochet Club. “So people who knit, people who are interested in the craft briefly or any sort of fiber art. We try to connect with each other and learn different techniques.”
The club usually holds about one general body meeting a week and a movie night on the last Thursday of every month. Each meeting starts with an icebreaker, and then the officers introduce the crochet pattern of the day with a QR code students can scan to follow along. On Oct. 23, the pattern was a mini candy corn plushie in honor of the Halloween season.
One of the main missions of the group is to give back to the community through fiber arts, participating in service hours and community events. Recently, members of the club volunteered at Jones Creek Regional Branch Library, performing clerical tasks and crocheting granny squares that would later be sewn together into blankets to be donated.
For Frazier, the volunteer event at Jones Creek Library was so special because it introduced many students to crocheting who previously had little to no exposure to the craft.
“People were just trying to get volunteer hours, so we just had a bunch of random people,” she said. “Some people who were interested in crochet, they saw stuff. And some people weren’t as interested, but they at least learned about the club through the event.”
The general body meetings are laidback, less about ticking off boxes on an agenda and more centered around fostering an environment where students can relax and let their creativity flow. At the meeting on Thursday, students were free to chat or to crochet silently, and the officers played Lo-fi music in the background to add to the atmosphere.
Bella Frederick, a junior double-majoring in computer science and French, has been crocheting and knitting for over seven years. She first heard about Crochet Club through its Instagram, but she said she stayed for the relaxing environment.
Many members bring their own materials, but it is not required — the club provides supplies like yarn, crochet hooks, needles and more so that beginners can try their hand at the craft without having to spend a lot of money up front. The club is currently working on putting together crochet kits with all the basic supplies to set beginners up with everything they might need when picking up the hobby.
“We plan to invest funds into making crochet kits that people can use in case they’re a new crocheter and they don’t know what to buy,” Frazier said. “We could just have a kit already ready for people who want to make items, or just at least try out crochet.”
By making the club so beginner-friendly, Frazier is hoping to appeal to students interested in crochet and fiber arts, offering them a space to broaden their horizons.
“It doesn’t hurt to at least try,” she said. “In a way, it can be relaxing, or you can learn something new. Or you can discover something about yourself by trying a new craft.”
