SIOUX CITY — With yarn in their fingers and skeins at their feet, three women sit in a quiet church parlor. Loop by loop, they add to the prayer shawls in their laps.
The small blankets are mindfully made to uplift and sustain the sick and afflicted in the church family and surrounding community. Others in shades of pale yellow, cotton candy pink and blue are crafted to celebrate the life of a baptized baby.
They say whoever gets one is wrapped in love and grace. For each, a prayer is said from the start, and it’s blessed after the last stitch has been secured.
Jill Clem founded the Prayer Shawl Ministry three years ago as an outgrowth of another knitting circle at Grace United Methodist Church. Both groups seek to provide comfort and care through handmade gifts.
Every Wednesday, needleworkers from the parish and community come together for Purls of Faith, which started in 2003 when the church secretary wanted to learn the craft and Glendy Nichols volunteered to teach her.
“Anybody who hears about us and wants to learn to knit or wants to refresh their skills is welcome,” Nichols said. “There is no fee. I supply the needles and the yarn for them to learn to knit.”
The first project they do is something for charity, which could be for the Council on Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, T-top sweaters for World Vision’s Knit for Kids program or cardigans to go in the baby layettes for the United Methodist Committee on Relief.
The group also makes hats, mittens and scarves for students in need at Spalding Elementary School, the Sioux City Journal reports.
“I can’t think of the last time I’ve knit anything for myself,” Nichols said. “It’s either for the church bazaar or it’s the T-tops or baby cardigans. No, I don’t knit for myself anymore.”
For her, it’s an outlet to teach.
Before retiring in 1997, she taught science and math classes in high school, worked in special education for 17 years and gave violin lessons. She’s still teaching one 89-year-old woman how to play.
“I’ve had people that say, ‘I know I can’t learn to knit.’ I just keep after them,” she said. “They tell me I’m patient. I don’t know. I just teach. I’m a teacher.”
Clem, the minister of small group ministries at the church, learned to knit from her grandmother back in the day, but needed help from Nichols to relearn some of the skills. In turn, Clem taught Marta Nelson to knit - no small feat since her grandmother tried to teach her, too, but met her match with Nelson’s left-handed technique.
“I’ve been told if I ever make clothes it would come out backwards,” Nelson said with a laugh.
Now, if she gets stuck, she finds left-handed knitting videos on YouTube.
On Thursday afternoon, she joined Clem to make prayer shawls for the homebound, hospitalized and downtrodden. They’re meant to be a blessing to those who receive them, but Clem said she feels blessed as well.
She knows of one woman who carried the small blanket with her to the cancer treatment center. Another had a stroke that took her ability to talk. When the minister gave her a prayer shawl, the woman took her one working arm and hugged the blanket to her body, saying thank you, though she couldn’t speak.
“Moments like that, I’m so happy that we have this and continue to do this and that people are blessed by them,” Clem said. “Something was created just for them and prayed over to give them the comfort they need.”