Their calling cards include baby blankets and the tiniest of newborn warming caps. They knit and crochet their way into nurseries, shelters, reservations and rural villages across the world.The Naughty Needlers never rest. The women, most in their 70s and 80s, meet at the Weymouth Senior Center every Tuesday morning. By 10 a.m., they are bustling through the doors, carrying bags of yarn and finished items they proudly place on a table. They bring colorful sweaters and scarves, hats and mittens, lap robes and afghans.
For the next two hours, they will sit in a loose, large circle, chatting and laughing as they work. Their output is impressive: more than 1,000 items donated to charities last year alone.
Everyone, it seems, has a story: How they make the sweaters for malnourished children 2 inches larger across the front because starving children have distended bellies, or how security was called to disperse the admiring crowd that gathered around a volunteer delivering three big bags of items for the neonatal nursery at South Shore Hospital. [more]