Their Warmth Comes Through in the Gifts They Knit

In a room resembling an elementary school arts and crafts class, they gather twice a week. Spread out on the long narrow table are balls of yarn, knitting and crocheting needles and half-finished blankets, booties and hats. The women who will turn these items into gifts for premature babies, abused women and ill patients? The Yarn Spinners.

The group of senior knitters and crocheters started meeting in 1997 -- six women who gathered to make blankets and slippers for the Interval House, an organization for abused and battered women. The women entering the shelter, many frightened and with children, instantly brightened when they received hand-knit blankets and slippers.

“They tell us, ‘It looks so homey now,’ ” said Adelaide Balcom, 68, the group’s unofficial leader.

Last year, the Yarn Spinners sent 129 blankets to the Interval House. Their efforts soon spread to an organization that cares for dialysis patients and to Children’s Hospital of Orange County, now the biggest beneficiary of their handmade goods.

In 2000, after founder Lorrie Johnson had to move out of the apartment where they met in Stanton, the group -- which had grown to between 15 and 20 women -- moved into the Westminster Senior Center. The Yarn Spinners give back to their host, donating knitted and crocheted items that the center sells.

But the women don’t come faithfully twice a week solely to create clothes and crafts. “It’s not just yarn spinning; it’s caring and sharing,” Balcom said.

Marion Krabill, 69, is one of two original Yarn Spinners still with the group. At a recent meeting, she crocheted a square that will be part of a blanket, repeatedly starting and stopping her work as she recounted a senior center outing they called “Chocolate Covered L.A.”

“Oh, it melted in your mouth,” she told the ladies about the candy she sampled in a chic Pasadena shop that caters to celebrity sweet tooths. A pound of chocolate, she dramatically told them, retails for $20. Even dinner had chocolate -- a chicken dish with some sort of sauce.

The Mexican sauce called mole?

“I think so,” Krabill said. “I didn’t particularly like it.”

“Did you go to sleep when you went home?” asked Dorothy Flowers, 63. “I couldn’t have after all that chocolate!”

Sharing an Adventure

On the other side of the linoleum-floored room, 71-year-old Hanna Hodgetts recounted the adventures of a week watching her grandchildren while her daughter vacationed in Cancun.

One afternoon had her nervously searching for her grandson at a Boy Scout camp. “I thought, ‘If I lose him, what will I do?’ ” she said, mostly ignoring the blanket in her lap. “By Sunday, I was worn out. I don’t want to be a mother again in this life.”

Frances Bisaha, 76, concurred. “Kids take so much energy. You don’t realize how little of it you have.”

Theresa Sadr, 58, lives within walking distance of a Long Beach senior center. But she prefers the company of the women in Westminster. “Once I came here, I never left,” Sadr said. “I love to come here. We’re kind of like sisters.

“That’s the best part; we keep up with everybody’s children and families.”

Over the last four years, Balcom estimates, the spinners have fashioned more than 1,000 baby hats alone for Children’s Hospital. Most of the gifts are for preemies, whose heads are the size of a small fist. The babies can weigh as little as a pound.

The booties they knit for those born premature are the size of doughnut holes. The hats are made by the dozen; some are designed to accommodate hospital equipment strapped to babies who are barely hanging onto life.

Some of the spinners, like Bisaha, sew matching outfits of smocks, diaper covers and hats.

“They’re fun to make,” she said. “They can dress up the babies and the parents get a little boost.”

The handmade clothing “keeps them warm and they get to take them home,” said Estella Downey, volunteer coordinator for Children’s Hospital. “These people give their time to make them feel a little warmer and loved.”

The youngest spinner is 54, and the women hail from all parts of the world. Their knitting experience ranges from decades to weeks.

‘Crazy’ but Happy

Tomoko Keel started knitting in March, not long after her husband lost a five-year battle against cancer. In that time, she has crocheted a sweater, hats, booties and a white, delicate water-bottle holder she shyly showed off. Following written directions is hard for the native Japanese speaker, so she relies on others.

“Each of them teach me,” said Keel, 71, gesturing to the table of women with her hands. “Sure, it’d be nice to give away $10,000, but I can’t do it. I can work with my hands.

“Maybe I’m crazy, but I’m so happy here.”

An easy silence fell over the group at their most recent meeting -- the women working quietly, happy to be together. There were 13 that day. The lone knitter, 64-year-old Sue Stultz, concentrated on a pastel rainbow-colored sweater. Slowly, the silence gave way to chatter and the laughter that keeps the women coming back.

Bisaha, hunched over a large afghan, pointed out a flaw in her blanket.

Hodgetts, sitting next to her, said not to worry about it. “I always say, when people put it over themselves, they don’t count the stitches,” Hodgetts said. “Especially for the babies. As long as it’s warm.”

“I’m learning,” Bisaha agreed. “I’m not as picky as I used to be.”

At the other end of the table, a similar conversation ensued as Krabill crocheted a hot-pink hat for the third time.

“I tore it up twice now. You know, when you’re talking you lose the stitch,” she said.

“We’re very good at talking,” said Mary Bee, 72, who prefers clean stitching. “Even though no one else notices, you do.”

“We call her Rip-out Mary,” Krabill joked.

Hundreds of rolls of yarn, donated by community members, sat in the corner of the room in large, plastic tubs. “As you can see,” Bisaha said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”