Four women gathered in a circle with yarn and knitting needles in hand. The staccato clicks of their needles mingled with laughter and conversation as St. Paul Catholic Center parishioner Mary Alice Hoover plopped two plastic bins full of yarn onto a table.
The group, called St. Paul’s Shawls, gathered Monday to knit and crochet shawls for community members going through grief or illness. They also make blankets for newly baptized babies.
“We want to give them comfort and show that someone is thinking about them,” Hoover said. “It’s something they can hold onto while they fight through whatever they’re going through.”
Since its beginning six years ago, St. Paul’s Shawls has produced 282 shawls. The shawls have been given to members of the St. Paul’s community, as well as to other organizations, such as Catholic Charities, Project Linus and CareNet Pregnancy.
The women use the leftover yarn to make hats and scarves for those in need.
“Nothing ever goes to waste,” Hoover said.
But what really sets the shawls apart is that the members pray as they stich, Hoover said.
Pam Crowe, parishioner and member of St. Paul’s Shawls, said harnessing prayer gives the shawls a new meaning and significance.
“Prayer is a powerful thing,” Crowe said. “It gives people the strength to know that they can carry on through their hardships.”
As she knit the blue strands of yarn together, she said she joined the organization because she wanted to do something to contribute to the St. Paul’s community.
Crowe said offering one’s time to someone can hold great meaning. She has offered two weeks so far for one shawl.
Hoover said the stiches of the shawls have symbolic meaning. The three-stich pattern stands for the Holy Trinity: the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. She said the three stiches also stand for faith, hope and love, as well as birth, life and death.
Each color also has a distinct meaning, she said. Most of the baptism shawls are white, which symbolizes the purity of the newly baptized baby.
Often, when Hoover and her fellow knitters pull out a color of yarn at random, they later find out that it’s the recipient’s favorite color, Hoover said. She said these instances encourage her to keep knitting.
“It’s the Holy Spirit at work,” Hoover said.
But most of all, Crowe said it gives someone the comfort they need to rise above their illness or grief.
“When someone’s going through something like that, they often feel like they’re fighting their battles alone,” she said. “So we’re reminding them that someone is thinking about them and praying for them.”
Hoover said part of the process is listening to the needs of the parish and paying attention to who’s in need. When they realize someone is going through a difficult time, she said offering a shawl shows that they are not invisible.
Across from Hoover, IU graduate student Angela Harris knit beside a ball of brown, green and red yarn. She said one of the best feelings in the world is to receive thank-you notes from the recipients of the shawls.
She said Hoover had a binder stuffed with thank-you notes at home.
“It’s a good feeling to know you did something to help someone,” Harris said. “It’s nice to make someone feel stronger and safer and more comfortable.”
Hoover said she recalls a time when she gave a shawl to a sick friend.
While the friend was not Christian, he kept the prayer shawl on until the day he died.
She said that moment showed her the power the shawls can have to provide comfort.
“It was just overwhelming to know it gave him warmth and comfort until his last day,” she said.
Hoover said the recipients aren’t the only ones to benefit from the comfort of the prayer shawls.
The knitters also benefit from doing God’s work and connecting with others, she said.
“When you hand someone a prayer shawl during their time of need, there is this indescribable connection,” she said. “There’s a closeness and appreciation for each other that you don’t get anywhere else.”
