Rebecca Fryar leads craft night at the Library on Thursdays
Rebecca Fryar (RJ) and the Facebook member contest winning pattern, Shroom Dude.
When Rebecca Fryar, who is going by RJ at present due to the fact that her mother-in-law is also named Rebecca (which causes some confusion), moved to town a while back, she found herself a bit lonely and looking for something to do. To solve her problem, she decided to bring people to her and find likeminded people to spend an evening with in the pursuit of a variety of crafts. After setting up shop at the Soda Springs library, she’s been off and running ever since, with a growing social media presence and the company of a regular group in person.
“I’ve been crocheting for about a year now. I moved here from Kansas, so I didn’t really know anyone at first. My husband said I should socialize, so I said ‘Then I have to figure out what other people like and have to get into it. So, I thought it’d be cool to have other artists just come and hang out. The past couple of sessions we’ve had some really good conversations that way,” Fryar says.
“One of our artists, Kelly Moore, does ‘felting’ where you kind of stab the material and make different things out of it, like butterflies and animals,” she says. “Some other ladies do knitting as well, and we had some other ladies come in to learn how to do it. I’m not a great teacher, but a lot of the ladies have been very helpful and so they’re teaching each other how to knit and crotchet. We have yarn that was donated to us by Miss Anna Collins in case people need it, or see any that they want. I also printed up resources talking about different stitches and ideas.
The meetings are on Thursdays at 5:00 p.m. as long as the library is open.
“I’d eventually like to get it to where we’re all working on granny squares for a blanket for the fair, but we’re still just starting out right now.” A granny square is a basic square that is crocheted or knitted for a blanket. 40 people so far have joined the Facebook group (which is called Soda Springs Cozy Crafters), and many of them attend the meetings in person. Right now, there are about eight to ten people a week in the library, but Rebecca and the group would always be happy to see more show up.
At present, Rebecca’s math explains that each person would have to make about nine squares in order to put together a group blanket. “I think it’d be fun to do a group project like that.”
While there are some limits on the kinds of materials that can be brought into the library, most any type of craft is welcome for people to come and spend time working with or around other people on.
On Thursday, Rebecca was working on a project that had won a contest on the Facebook page for a submitted pattern. Tentatively called “shroom dude” the design is an elaborate one, with a lot of curved surfaces.
The group of crafters on hand Thursday included Rebecca herself, her mother in law Rebecca Fryar, Kelly Moore, Heidi Berg, Melissa McDowell, Wanda Ferwalt, and Natalie Dickhaut.
