The concentration and productivity of knitting are just what some inmates are looking for, says instructor Sheila Wright Rovelstad, Maryland, whose Knitting Behind Bars course at the Dorsey Run Correctional Facility, a minimum-security prison of 500 men in Jessup, Maryland, routinely has a waiting list. Her class gives them the tools to learn not only how to knit, but how to connect. “Knitting brings Zen and peace,” Sheila says.

*Strings Attached originally appeared in the Summer 2018 issue of The Key of Kappa Kappa Gamma.