Emily Ostlund, Minot Public Library adult services librarian, works on crocheting a magic circle with yarn on April 19.

Minot Public Library launched a new program last year called Twisted Stitches, a small, quiet meeting for people who love to crochet, knit and do other yarn-related hobbies on the fourth Wednesday of each month.

An employee at the Minot Public Library asked why they did not have a knitting group, and they all thought starting one would be an excellent idea. Emily Ostlund, the current Minot Public Library adult services librarian, got together with Kassie Ziegler, Valerie Huseth and Zhaina Moya to form a yarn crafting club for people 18 and older. They wanted to create a calm and quiet place for people who like to crochet or knit to go to socialize and work on their projects in the company of others who share the same hobby.

“Because why not?” Ostlund said. “People love to get together and either crochet or knit or do cross stitch and just talking about whatever is going on in their lives. We thought, ‘You know, that’s a pretty easy program to start, so we might as well just start one up.”

It has been running since November 2023, and with an open door policy, around eight to 15 people show up for each session. The group is designated to only run for one hour, but Ostlund said it is a common occurrence for the group to run a little long.

Those who attend may bring their current project to work on, or they may start a new project just to work on during group. However, Ostlund highly encourages the group attendees to take their projects home with them to work on, offering them that sense of accomplishment upon finishing it.

If anyone would like to attend but doesn’t know how to crochet or knit, some of the long-time members of the group are more than willing to teach newcomers or first-timers, according to Ostlund.

“We have a lot of regular program attendees who are really excellent at getting people started if they’ve never knitted before,” Ostlund said.

For those who may want to participate but do not have supplies at home, the library also has yarn, crochet hooks and knitting needles available to use during the group time.

The library’s storage room is chocked full of heavy duty totes of different types of yarn. They have the regular acrylic colored yarn, sparkly yarn, baby yarn, thin and thick yarn, and even one type called “slubby yarn,” which goes from thick to thin, then back to thick again.

All of the yarn that the library has was donated by members of the community who no longer had use for the material.

During group, some of the projects that Ostlund has seen are blankets, little cardigans for children and a stuffed poodle.

Since Ostlund is the one running and overseeing the group, Ziegler and Huseth thought it would be a good idea for her to learn how to crochet, so she picked it up. One of the first things she made is called an amigurumi, a crocheted stuffed animal made from yarn and stuffing.