You may have noticed a new, elite crew dominating the Garfield hierarchy. They saunter through the halls confidently, the entire Bulldog populace at their dispense. Teachers cater to them and administrators fear them. Women want to be them, and boys get red and stutter a lot when they walk by. You know them, I know them. Ladies and gentlemen, they are: The Knitting Club.

I was able to infiltrate one of their top secret meetings, held every Thursday in Ms. Hungate-Hawk’s room. The leader and founder is Lauren Honican, a junior whose skills with the needle are equaled only by her striking good looks. I’ve been inside just a few minutes when Honican whips out her sticks and begins to tell me all about “casting on,” “purling,” “felting,” and “stitch guage” — technical knitting terms that she rattles off like she were reciting the alphabet, but make about as much sense to me as if she were speaking Swahili.

Honican has been knitting since she was seven years old, and hasn’t looked back since. She learned by taking lessons at Tricoter, a yarn shop whose name translates from French as “to knit.” For years she has worked on perfecting her stitches. Lately, she’s been needling away on a sweater for herself to wear, and it looks like it could have come straight from the department store. Honican has also participated in Knit for Life, a program through Swedish Medical Center where volunteers knit with cancer patients. She founded Knitting Club in late fall of this year because, she said, “I just wanted to knit at school.”

The rest of the club isn’t as devoted as Honican, but she does serve as a role model for aspiring knitters. “Lauren’s sweaters were my inspiration,” said fellow club member and sophomore Annie Schlossman.

Other members had alternate reasons for joining. “I read this book, East of Eden, where she tried to give herself an abortion with a knitting needle,” said junior Renee Tryon.

Junior Sorenne Shanley-Beaudry promoted the practical aspects of knitting. “It’s something to do with your hands when you’re bored,” she said. Shanley-Beaudry’s justification for the pastime may also explain the low male membership of the club.

It seems that some may have been in attendance at knitting club for the social status benefits, rather than an actual passion for knitting. From careful observation in my time there, I construed that Tryon and Molly Quinn-Shea, another junior, spent approximately 70% of their time giggling and 28% eating. Only a few precious seconds of their lunch period were spent actually knitting. Still, Quinn-Shea adamantly tried to convince me my impressions were wrong. “One time, me and Renee went to a knitting store on a Friday night!” she said.

While knitting may not actually be common in this club, the stitches between its members are doubtlessly tight. As Honican says affectionately, “Every stitch is filled with love.”