Hooks and Needles, which formed at St. Michael Catholic Church in Orland Park in 2005, is a prayer shawl ministry. 'The idea is we pray while we’re working, whether we’re working at home or together.'
Emilia Durante, from left, crochets a blanket while Donna McDonough shows Geraldine Baker and Mary Ann O’Neill a crochet stitch during a meeting earlier this month of Hooks and Needles at St. Michael Catholic Church in Orland Park.
“That’s wow. It’s not just that we’re making things and donating ,” she said. “The idea is that we’re incorporating prayer into every stitch.” Hooks and Needles started out making just prayer shawls for parishioners and their friends. Once those people were set, the ministry expanded to bring the shawls to hospitals, especially Palos Hospital in Palos Heights and South Suburban in Hazel Crest, which distributed them to patients in its cancer unit.
Kathy Leckie, who has attended St. Michael since she was 10, joined the group a few years ago, learning crochet in the process.“I decided I needed to do something,” she said. “Part of it is giving back - I think I must have given about 50 blankets by now.She now loves to crochet and does it often, including during a flight last summer to California, when she told a “friendly guy” sitting next to her about Hooks and Needles. It turned out his grandson was scheduled to soon be christened at St.
The morning sessions focus on creating prayer shawls, blankets and hats, but the evening meetings are less about work and more about connecting. At night meetings, “I share a joke, a crochet pattern, a prayer and a knitting pattern,” McDonough explained, adding that she crochets because knitting “takes work.”“One of our most prolific workers goes to Florida in September and we don’t see her until May,” she said. “But when we see her in May, she probably brings 50 things.
The prayer shawls are available to anyone who wants one for free, though cash donations are welcome to help pay for yarn and other materials.
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