When Patricia Ross and Brenda Thompson get together they'll haveyou in stitches with jokes and crocheting.
You see, the two women are the supreme creators of lap-sizedafghans, hats and scarves.
They make them for clients with dementia at the non-profit RockyMountain Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly, or PACE.
The two women are PACE clients and live idependently. PACE has alarge variety of programs to help seniors live in their own homes.About 14 percent of participants reside in nursing homes, officialssaid.
Ross, 71, and Thompson, 65, live in the same apartment complex,but come to the PACE Center where there is a medical clinic, visioncare, physical therapy, social services, transportation, adult daycare, nutrition services, and social activities.
Their lap robe project was hatched after Ross had heart surgery.
'I was bored, bored, bored,' Ross said. Thompson had some yarnand the rest is history. They crochet six hours a day five days aweek, mostly at their apartments, sometimes at social gatherings atthe PACE Center. At last count, they have made 48, of the blanketsand scores of scarves and hats.
The blankets are available for clients being bused to the centerin the winter. Some are used in wheelchairs. On the dementia daycare unit, clients often carry baby dolls for comfort, and they wrapthem in the blankets that Ross and Thompson make. The crocheteditems are also given as bingo prizes, and to area nursing homes.
One woman with dementia always looks for the same blanket. 'Shealways says it was the color of her mother's aprons.' said WendyFarr, communtiy relations coordinator for Rocky Mountain Health CareServices.
'These sweet ladies have taken their handmade gifts and made alot of people happy,' Farr said.
They also do craft projects with a homemakers group through ElPaso County Family and Communty Education. Ross,who worked in audiovisual department for Colroado Springs School District 11 and raisedfour children, learned to crochet from her mother, who homesteadedin Eagle years ago.
Thompson, who was employed by Hewlett Packard, taught herself tosew.
'I call them the elves,' laughed Willa Hansen, historian for thehomemakers. She prodded the women to tell the story about the timethey cut out patterns for more than 1,200 felt mice for Christmasgift baskets.
Thomson was carrying a shoebox down the hall of her apartmentcomplex, when the maintenance man asked what was inside. She toldhim mice. The next day he showed up at the door to exterminate thevarmints. 'He asked, 'Where are they?' I told him they were dryingout. I had just put glue on them.'
The two women break into peals of laughter at their well-wornstory.
Laugh and crochet. Crochet and laugh.
'It's therapeutic,' noted Thompson.
'We can't dig ditches and fill sandbags, so we do what we can dofor others,' Ross said.
