pearlgirl, my sister is a minister in a nursing home and has started a group at her church making them. The site she likes concerning the shawls is:

http://www.shawlministry.com/

if you are interested. You certainly are doing a wonderful service.

Yes, that's a great site. I think it's great to have those groups, you get to visit and you're doing good for others :)

I work for hospice. A church makes the prayer shawls and gives them to us for our patients. I'm sorry to say but not many of my patients have made use of them. Probably because they are too sick to understand the concept. Many of the shawls are put in a drawer where they remain. However, some who are alert are really appreciative. Most of my patients are in facilities. When someone is cold I have draped it around their shoulders. I often need something to place over the ladies' legs. I have used the shawls but they are so narrow they don't do a very good job. If they were a little shorter and wider they could serve more purpose. Some of the shawls have had plastic beads attached above the fringe which looks nice, but is not practical for my dementia patients. It's an idea you might use if you know the patient won't try to eat them. HTH

my shawls are kinda wide about 30 and long enough to wrap. I usually make the narrow ones for my friends and myself to wear in the spring or fall. For the cancer patients I make tags for the patient or a family member. The paliative care nurse then decides who it would benefit more. Because like you say some patients are so very sick and wouldn't know they had it and wouldn't care.

pearlgirl, do you have a crocheted pattern for your prayer shawls? I have a gal on this end who would like crochet pattern, she doesn't knit, and because the shawlministry website only has knit, she is somewhat frustrated.
There seems to be a book from Annie's Attic that has several shawl patterns, but this would save buysing that book if you could point us in the right direction.
Thank you for your time, looking forward to hearing from ya!

Here are some crochet instructions for the prayer shawls.

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: Crochet Prayer Shawls

A while back Lion Brand yarn's newsletter made a request for prayer shawls for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Go to the home page for Lion Brand:
http://www.lionbrand.com

Put prayer shawl patterns in the search box and 6 easy patterns for knit and crochet will appear.

They also provide free printable shawl cards.

Here is a link that might be useful: Printable Shawl cards