Get Crafty at the Kansas City Public Library This Winter
used in crafting sessions at the Bluford Branch.
This article first appeared in the November/December 2026 issue of KC Studio Magazine.
The winter months—when kids are out of school for holiday breaks or have a little more free time in their schedules —are a great time to try something new.
Most days, the Kansas City Public Library’s neighborhood locations offer free opportunities to make art in a variety of media, play games, watch movies, and craft something.
Fun options include zine crafting and junk journaling at the Central Library; Creative Nights at the Plaza Branch; popular adult coloring at the Bluford Branch; and two new Bambu 3D printers at the Ruiz Branch.
At the Waldo Branch in 2024, Assistant Branch Manager Mila Blair launched A Stitch in Crime, a program that combines knitting with audiobooks. Participants 18 and older meet with projects in hand on the second and fourth Fridays of the month from 4 to 5:30 p.m.
Blair had heard about a similar program in Virginia called Deadly Knits, but instead of listening to true crime like that one, she chose a lighter option: cozy mysteries.
She says she chose the genre on purpose because following the storylines doesn’t take much concentration.
"I go down the list of cozy mysteries about crafters," she says. "And a lot of them have those really fun, punny titles: ‘Knit One, Kill Two,’ ‘Needled to Death,’ ‘Murder Wears Mittens.’”
But staffers aren’t the only ones who come up with new activities. Public demand often leads to new programming, which staffers then shape around their skills or interests.
Senior Library Assistant Clyde Miedema has worked for the library for more than four years.
When he first started at Bluford about two years ago, kids from Pride Haven (now known as Teresa's Place), an LGBT youth shelter operated by SAVE, Inc., would stop by.
“And just a lot of the kids were wearing the same thing,” he says, “and oftentimes with a lot of holes in them, or just like wear and tear.”
In response, Miedema created a Mending Circle to meet that need and challenge fast-fashion trends.
“If you have clothes that you need to fix, the only problem is they’ve got some wear and tear; you can breathe a little bit of new life into that,” he says. “So, I kind of wanted to introduce other means of consumption to the kids.”
Since the program started, he’s seen growing interest in mending, sewing, and crafting at Bluford.
The branch now offers an all-ages crafting circle from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month, a communal space for learning to craft more sustainably. Supplies such as sewing needles, thread, and scrap fabric are provided, and a sewing machine is on-site. Take-home kits are available upon request.
“There’s just something about being so hands-on with it,” Miedema says. “And it’s meditative. It’s a calming thing, centering.”
And cozy. Just like it should be in the winter months