With the new school year finally beginning to fall into rhythm, new after-school clubs are soon to begin as well. School psychologist Anne Brosnan is in the process of developing a new club: the Atomic Knitters, a club devoted to the art of knitting.

Brosnan talks about her early plans for the club.

“The plan is to start this club, the Atomic Knitters and hopefully get some interest started up,” Brosnan said. “Every year at back to school night,  the PTSA is doing a table setup for clubs to reach out to students. So we are going to do that and just get the word out as much as possible.”

Brosnan talks about how she came up with the idea of Atomic Knitters and what gave her inspiration to start a new activity for after school.

“What gave me the idea, was that I do this with some friends of mine outside of school. As a school psychologist I meet with a lot of kids,” Brosnan said. “I know there is a lot of kids who would like to join a club, who want to do something, but they don’t really have something that interests them and for me, meeting with my friends over the years has been something really fun and a great way to develop friendships.”

While Atomic Knitters is not officially a club as of this writing, Brosnan has already planned the schedule for the beginning weeks of the club and discusses basic requirements.

“We want to start out giving people really simple things. We are going to provide all the materials, so people come, they do not need to buy anything and we have lots of materials available and it’ll all be free to the kids and our plan is to get started with something simple like doing scarfs, which is just knitting a lot,” Brosnan said. “From there we’ll teach how to do other things like how to make hats if they want or if kids have an idea of something they want to work on. We are planning to meet once a week. Anybody is welcome to join and we are hoping we get a good turnout. In terms of your skill level, you really just need to want to learn.”

Brosnan has high hopes for Atomic Knitters, looking to get a good groove for the club and having a committed group of students. “What I really would like to see is for us to get a good group together ,that kind of sticks together and stays with it at least for the school year and even to continue on for next year,” Brosnan said. “I am hoping to achieve that sense of cohesion between the kids and feelings of accomplishment.”

With all new things come challenges. However, Brosnan hopes that the club will be able to overcome those obstacles.

“Challenges I guess would just be ensure kids come on a regular basis so they get the fundamentals down, because I know that in high school students have a lot of things pulling them. So just to make a commitment to come a few times, I think that would be the real challenge,” Brosnan said.

In regards to those who may be hesitant to join Atomic Knitters, Brosnan gives advice to possible skeptics and explains some of the benefits that come with knitting.

“What I’d say to them is just try it. If you have any interest, if you like working with your hands and you have any interest at all, just try it,” Brosnan said. “It [knitting] is a really nice and relaxing way to spend your time for people who have a lot of stress.”