Knitting needles clacking at Rotorua Intermediate

Alicia Heron, 13, (left) and Abbey Moberly, 12 are in the Rotorua Intermediate knitting club. Photo/Stephen Parker

Twenty hands go up when the librarian asks "who comes before school?". They go up again when she asks who goes in the morning break and they rise again when she asks who is there at lunchtime.

Twenty hands go up for a final time when asked who goes after school.

Those 20 little hands belong to pupils at Rotorua Intermediate and all 20 of them know how to knit.

They are members of the school knitting club which meets in the library at every opportunity.

It was started by Year 8 student Alicia Heron who was part of the knitting group at Westbrook School when she went there.

When Alicia moved to Rotorua Intermediate she was disappointed to find that her new school didn't have a club. So she took it upon herself to start one.

"At my old school my sister and I got quite interested in the club and started to go ... we ended up running the whole club," Alicia said.

"Last year we tried to start our own here but no one knew how. We enjoyed it so much we decided we wanted to get back into it."

So librarian Ali Fargher took the girls under her wing to get the club off the ground.

Since it began, in the middle of Term One, it's grown from about six member to 15 to 20 pupils who spend all their free time knitting.

"It's something nice and relaxing you can do anywhere," Alicia said.

"Most people think it's just for old people but it's not.

"Right now we [Alicia and her twin sister] are making slippers. We're making one each for our uncle."

Fargher said the group was hugely diverse and passionate.

She is also being helped by Joy Kleine, the grandmother of one of the pupils.

"It's a dying art. What they are going to be able to do is have something that nobody else has," Kleine said.

"Even if they have the same pattern they may have different wool.

"Knitting is a dying art and this group is as keen as mustard. We need to keep this enthusiasm going."

Kleine said the group was also social as the pupils taught each other.

But they are in desperate need of more wool and needles. Anyone with spare double knit wool is asked to drop it off at the school reception during opening hours.