Center for Creativity hosts collaborative crochet workshop

Pitt students and faculty of all experience levels came together in the Understory of the Cathedral, the home of the Center for Creativity, to participate in an interactive crochet workshop. The event took place on the evening of Oct. 30 and featured an hour of instruction followed by another hour for participants to experiment with and practice the skills they learned.

The Center for Creativity is made up of three multi-purpose spaces across the University of Pittsburgh campus where there are a variety of materials, machines and other tools to create projects for academic or personal endeavors available to students. In addition to being a space for students and faculty to independently make creations, the C4C staff hosts a number of events throughout the school year where participants are welcome to come learn a new artistic skill. 

Chloe Baierl, an assistant at the C4C, facilitated this week’s crochet event. She described the mission of C4C as spaces for the Pitt community to express their creativity. 

“Our main goal at the Center for Creativity is to supply the Pitt community with free creative resources in more low-tech makerspaces and also to provide a space that isn’t so focused on creating specific projects but rather a place where people can explore different processes and materials,” Baierl said. “Most importantly, we want to give people the opportunity to do these things in a communal space where they have the opportunity to meet other people who have similar interests to them.”

Baierl herself has been a fiber artist for most of her life, so she hosts these workshops to inspire the same enjoyment she finds from the craft in others. 

“I am a fiber artist — I have been knitting since I was 8 years old. When I was a student at Pitt, I really got back into knitting and fiber art in general as a therapeutic creative outlet,” Baierl said.

As Baierl describes, the kinds of people who often attend fiber arts workshops and other similar skills workshops the C4C hosts are a very diverse group demographic wise, but all still share a common desire to try new things in a collaborative environment.

“People who attend our workshops are mostly beginners, but there is a real mix of undergrad students, grad students, and staff members,” Baierl said. “It feels rare to have a space on campus where students and staff are involved in something together but are all on the same playing field, all trying something new for the first time. It’s a really neat bonding experience, and a great way for people to meet others who they wouldn’t normally interact with.”

One such attendee of this week’s crochet workshop was Tarini Ravikumar, a senior bioengineering major, who said she has always wanted to try different kinds of fiber arts and has found a place to do so within the C4C.

“I’ve tried knitting before, which I did at the knitting workshop earlier this month. My mom used to crochet when I was little, so I’ve always wanted to learn,” Ravikumar said. “It was great to get to try something new, especially in a smaller group environment. It was really great to learn among others.”

Another participant, Joelle Blankenship, a sophomore history major, has also always wanted to learn to crochet and enjoyed the opportunity to do so in a small group environment.

“A bunch of my friends in high school knew how to crochet, and they tried to teach me, but I never really picked it up. But even since then, I’ve wanted to learn,” Blankenship said. 

This small group size and collaborative environment of C4C workshops is something Baierl feels fosters a special sense of community among participants.

“A thing I do think is cool that I see with these workshops is that people who do come who already know how to, say, knit or crochet, will help people around them who are learning and help them walk through the steps while I may be helping someone else,” Baierl said. “Other beginners who catch on to something faster than someone else will also help their neighbors. It feels more like a communal learning atmosphere than just me teaching everyone, which is really awesome to see.”

Another aspect of the workshop that participants enjoyed was access to free materials, as they feel this makes it easier to try new things without committing to purchasing supplies, which can be costly.

“I think it’s nice that we get to take the yarn and hook they supply us with home after the workshop because that makes it easy for me and other participants to keep developing the skills we started learning here,” Blankenship said. 

Baierl is glad that the C4C has provided people with a place to explore new interests and hobbies among other people with similar interests. 

“Crocheting and knitting can be so individual, most people I meet who know how to do any sort of fiber art learned to do so through YouTube videos. It’s been really fun to open it up and make it more of a communal, public experience,” Baierl said.