FARGO – Last week, Katterrius Reams planned to give his 5-year-old daughter a knit winter hat, but not just any old knit winter hat.

Reams, a 36-year-old father of six, made the pink hat with ear flaps, braided ties and pompom during his time in Cass County Jail for conspiracy to commit robbery.

“I’m excited for her to see it,” he said. “You know how 5-year-olds are; she’ll be like, ‘Daddy gave me this.’ But when she gets older, we’ll tell her, ‘No, Daddy made that.’ ”

“I want her to have it for a long time,” he added. “I want her to know that I did something positive with my life. I want to show her Daddy can knit.”

Reams learned to knit “Jailhouse Rock” hats and scarves in Jail Chaplains volunteer Susan Larson’s weekly knitting class, renamed “fiber mechanics” for the men.

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“The men complained that they were being teased for going to ‘knitting’ class, so we decided to call it something else,” she said.

Larson, who picked up knitting in 2005, has been faithfully carting the supplies for the men’s and women’s classes from her van to the jail once a week for three years. Fellow volunteer Lori Pender started joining her in July.

“My kids can’t get over the fact that on Wednesday night we go to church, then on Thursday, Mom goes to jail,” the 50-year-old West Fargo woman said with a laugh.

It took her a few tries to convince authorities that she could safely teach inmates a skill that requires long, sharp objects, but she kept at it, explaining that they could use short, circular needles connected with a cord.

Larson, the bookkeeper for the Jail Chaplains, thought of everything.

She designs her own patterns and accommodates special requests, like Reams’.

The class uses a bulkier yarn so short-timers can complete a project before they’re released. Unfinished projects are offered to new inmates, and finished but unclaimed projects are offered to inmates with winter release dates.

“Inmates who’re released in the winter don’t have warm winter clothes, hats, scarves or gloves,” she said. “Everything gets used.”

Prairie Yarns, where Larson also teaches, offers a discount on supplies for her jail classes. The south Fargo shop also serves as a drop-off point for donated knitting materials and knitted winter gear.

When she first started, she was a little nervous, more about following procedure than interacting with inmates. Now entering the jail is no big deal, and she looks forward to her classes every week.

“To have them sit down and work on it, and then see the pride in their face when they get through that, we just celebrate,” she said.

Her students range in age from 18 to 55-60, and most, like Reams, have no prior experience knitting or with any other “fiber mechanics.”

Larson said Reams was one of her best students. She plans to help him continue his new hobby now that he’s a “returning citizen,” staying with friends in Fargo while looking for housing and work.

She brought his finished product to a presentation about the program at Triumph Lutheran Brethren Church in Moorhead.

“I held it up, and 40 women went, ‘Awww,’ ” she said.

The class gave Reams and his peers an escape from day-to-day prison life, an hour a week for them to make something with their own hands while bobbing along to the Christian rap and hip-hop Larson plays on the room’s TV.

During the second half of his stay, Reams worked overnight on cleaning duty, but he always made sure someone woke him up in time for knitting class on Thursday afternoon.

He said knitting is relaxing, comforting and stress-relieving.

“I always thought it was a woman’s thing, an old person’s thing. I never thought in a million years that I’d do it,” he said. “(But) it was something different, and I liked it.”

Gerri Leach, Jail Chaplains executive director, said the class, along with the others offered by the organization, also gives inmates an opportunity to receive instruction and encouragement, which they might not have received in the past.

“If they do the crime, they’re gonna do the time, but while they’re with us, we’re going to give them every opportunity to leave here healthier,” she said.

Larson doesn’t usually know what inmates are in for, nor does she care, because, as both she and Leach said, “It doesn’t matter.”

“It’s all in the paper if you choose to look, but I don’t,” she said.

Quoting St. Francis of Assisi, Larson said teaching inmates how to knit and encouraging them to tap into their creativity is her way of ministering to them.

“ ‘Preach the Gospel, and if necessary, use words,’ ” she said. “He’s allowed me to use this talent that I have to minister to people and bring God’s love to them without having to preach about it.”

Her innate abilities and willingness to donate her time has apparently had an effect on Reams, who was released the day before Thanksgiving.

“She’s a good teacher, I can tell you that much,” he said.

He seems determined to stay out of trouble – and out of jail – as difficult as it may be to get back on his feet.

“Like they used to tell me, they leave a light on for us like Motel 6,” he said. “Well, I don’t care if that light’s on, because I don’t wanna go back in there. I don’t need that.”