Doris Monreal didn’t want to assume too much when she asked if she could get fidget mats made for her clients at White Oaks at McHenry Memory Care.

“I didn’t want to be greedy. I thought 10 would be really nice,” Monreal said.

That wasn’t going to work for Diane Himpelmann and the women who meet Thursday mornings at McHenry Moose Lodge 691 to work on their craft projects together.

“We don’t really work in those numbers. ‘How about 50 or 100?’” Himpelmann remembers asking Monreal.

Either crafting together or at home, the women are making projects to give away in bulk.

For the past three winters, the women have given scarfs, mittens and hats they have knitted, crocheted or sewn to Chicago’s Assumption Catholic Church – 200 for veterans and another 100 for the unhoused people the church helps.

“When they had all of the migrant buses, they were handing them out personally [to the arrivals, who often came unprepared for an Illinois winter],” Himpelmann said. “They asked them what they needed personally.”

The crafters keep Monreal in stock with the fidget mats, or placemats sewn with buttons, springs, snaps and zippers. The residents at White Oaks will use the mats until they are too worn, and then they get a new one.

If she bought them elsewhere, Monreal said, the mats could cost $25 to $50 each.

Two food pantries – one in Hebron and one in Wonder Lake – also get mittens, hats and scarfs from the group.

But the crafters still are looking to do more.

“We have been trying to find organizations that can use what we make,” Himpelmann said.

Some of the crafters use a weaving loom to make winter stocking caps. They can churn out a new hat in an hour and a half. They have bags filled with the cold-weather gear they have made, looking for a new home.

The women have been getting together Thursday mornings for years. They called themselves the Crafty Happy Hookers – hookers being a name for crocheters – for a long time, but not everyone liked that name.

“I like Quirky Quilters,” Donna Koerner said, adding that it’s partially because the other name is overused. “I was at a convention down in southern Illinois a gazillion years ago, and there were 10 groups called Happy Hookers.”

Not every project they work on together goes to charity. Wendy Teresi is crocheting a sweater – a coat of many colors using odds and ends of yarns.

Almost all of the women crochet and knit, or do embroidery or cross-stitch, too. They accept donated, unused yarn, and the Moose Lodge gives them space to store that and their finished work until it’s donated.

The women, who range in age from 60 and older, also have made new friends and strong relationships because of the club. Teresi met one of her fellow crafter at Hobby Lobby.

“We had a fabulous conversation and decided we were going to be friends,” Teresi said.

Himpelmann met Koerner at their hairdresser and invited her to become part of the group.

“When we come here when we are down, we know we have friends,” Teresi said. “All of these ladies are the most wonderful people, and they are all my friends.”