Shirley Sword - crocheting the stress into gifts

Shirley Sword is a woman who had lots of stress. So much stress in fact that she was prescribed valium and took it regularly. Until the day she walked right out in front of a car, oblivious to her surroundings.

Thankfully she wasn’t hit by the car, though it did change her thinking. “It scared me so much I threw the valium away,” Shirley said. “But I still needed something to relieve the stress.”

So she took up crocheting. That was back in the 1960s, and she has been crocheting ever since. She crocheted her way through her brother’s death in a work-related accident, her brother-in-law’s death and her divorce. Shirley said she taught herself how by following directions in a book. That worked well unless the pattern was too difficult, in which case she enlisted the help of her mother to read the directions while she crocheted. Since then, she has learned the stitches and no longer needs instructions. She remarried  nine years ago to Holy Cross mission partner Bill Goetzke, and continues to crochet daily.

“It’s relaxing,” she said of crocheting. “It takes your mind off other things.” Shirley said she isn’t one to sit and watch television without some yarn in her hand. “I’m either crocheting or working someplace. I can’t sit idle.”

She has crocheted baby blankets for her 14 grandchildren, and as they have graduated from high school, she sends them off with a crocheted afghan. She has made blankets for her children’s friends and for her hairdresser’s baby. And, she makes blankets for the babies born to Holy Cross mission partners. That alone is 16 or 17 blankets so far this year, and an average of 20 to 25 each year.

Shirley Sword with one of her blankets

Shirley had to use a little resourcefulness when her dental hygienist was pregnant. “She thought it was twins, but then she had triplets,” Shirley said. So Shirley started searching, and finally found identical yarn to match the two blankets she had made.  Another time, Shirley was asked to make an additional blanket for a little girl who had become so attached to the original blanket Shirley made, that when she inadvertently left it behind at a restaurant, she was inconsolable. To prevent that happening again, the little girl’s grandmother asked Shirley to make a spare.

She doesn’t waste any leftover yarn, but instead turns it into a variety of blankets she donates to St. Luke’s Hospital. She uses heavier yarn to make blankets for a group of ladies at Tallgrass Creek Retirement Community, who in turn give them to the homeless. And she purchases the yarn herself to make blankets for Holy Cross babies.

Shirley doesn’t accept payment, nor does she ask for donations. Though many times people will supply her with yarn they pick up here and there. For Shirley, it’s a labor of love, and a use of a God-given gift. “It’s letting me be of a service to somebody,” she said.

That’s especially true for her since she fell down the steps a year ago and compressed vertebrae in her back. Now she can’t stand for very long, so she had to give up helping serve meals at various churches and charitable organizations. Shirley continues to volunteer four times a month in the gift shop at St. Luke’s. She also embroiders tea towels for her grandchildren’s wedding gifts, and to donate to the Metro Lutheran Ministry silent auction. And she used to make pocket Bible verse cards that were distributed to clients at MLM.

But crocheting is her first love. She has eight patterns she knows by heart, and she also makes some of her own designs. Shirley crochets every day, and when asked how long she rests after finishing one blanket before starting another, she said, “Five seconds.” She said she is thrilled each time she realizes she started with a piece of yarn, and suddenly it becomes a blanket.

“It’s not a job,” Shirley said of crocheting. “It’s something that’s a pleasure. If anyone can take a blanket and enjoy it, that means a lot.”