MANKATO — While some people wake up sluggish and groaning with the start of each new work week, Heather Dreisbach has a reason to be positive.

“I look forward to Mondays,” Dreisbach says.

Monday nights, to be specific. That’s when she gathers up her wool, spinning wheel and other supplies and heads to the Coffee Hag on Riverfront Drive to spend a few hours taking it easy with some friends.

A handful of women sit gathered around two small, square tables pushed together near the back entrance of the coffee shop. Knitting books, skeins of yarn and half-empty glasses are scattered across the tables. It’s 8 o’clock, but the ladies have already been knitting for a while. They like to make the most of their night, sometimes showing up as early as 6 p.m., and usually hanging around until closing time at 10 p.m.

The group is fairly small because a few regulars are missing, but the number of people who show up fluctuates with each Monday night get-together. As the cooler seasons approach, the crowd tends to grow, and as many as 13 people have come to a single winter gathering in the past.

“We want people to feel welcome,” Caroline Lee says, explaining that expert knowledge of the craft isn’t necessary to partake.

When she first started learning the art, Lee was slowed down by the difficulty, but after about a week of confusion, the technique suddenly made sense. While seasoned knitter Lisa Allen taught herself to knit and crochet, Lee decided to take courses at the Tangled Skein in St. Peter when she developed an interest in the skill.

But as Heather Moore points out, “You don’t even need a class; you just need someone to watch,” which is why all ages, genders and skill levels are welcome to join the group’s weekly sessions.

Whether the number of people changes or not, the location always remains the same. The Coffee Hag has been home to the group ever since the “knit night” concept developed a couple of years ago.

Lee pages through a knitting book, spotting a children’s sweater she may be interested in tackling. One of the most practical things about the hobby is the fact that the ladies can deliver homemade gifts to friends or family on each birthday and holiday that comes around.

Although using a guide can be helpful, a pattern isn’t vital to creating a good finished project, whether it be a scarf, sweater, hat, washcloth or baby blanket, to name a few options.

“The challenge is to just make whatever you want,” Lee says.

And if a project gets a little too challenging, it can always be chocked up to experience, pegged a UFO — unfinished object — and left for a later date.

As far as difficulty goes, a clear consensus among the group shows that socks can be one of the most intricate articles of clothing to knit. The reason they’re so complicated stems from the size of the needles being used. To make socks, needles should be somewhere in the range of size 0-3, which means about 2-3.25 millimeters in diameter.

“If someone makes socks for you, you know they love you,” Allen says.

As complex and time-consuming as certain projects can be, knitting itself is relaxing for the group, proving weekends aren’t the only good time to wind down.

“It’s amazingly therapeutic; you have no idea,” Lee says.

The amount of hours put into a project can vary based on difficulty, experience level of the knitter, size of the needles, thickness of the yarn and other factors. Dreisbach chooses to throw an additional step into her knitting process, first running sheep’s wool through a spinning wheel and later joining two finished strands together to create her own yarn.

Although the other ladies opt for purchasing materials instead, different projects can still take hours, days, weeks or months, providing everyone with a reason to continue looking forward to Monday.