Prayer Shawl Cards: Free, Printable & Customizable

Make your gift of a prayer shawl or cloth even more personal with these free printable and customizable prayer shawl cards

prayer shawl cards

In one sense, a gift of a hat, a scarf, a prayer shawl, or any other item we knit for charity speaks for itself. The fact that we’ve put in our time, effort, love, and yarn toward making something for someone else says so much.

However, there are times when a few well-chosen words pinned to an item knitted for charity can make all the difference.

This is particularly true when we’re knitting a comfort item — that is, something not necessarily meant to address a physical need, but rather an emotional one.

The Ultimate Comfort Items – Prayer Shawls & Cloths

A prayer shawl, sometimes referred to as a “comfort shawl,” is the quintessential example of a comfort item.

Prayer shawls are one of the most common ways to knit for charity all over the country. If you attend a church, it’s possible that it has a prayer shawl ministry. If not, you may know of a nearby charity or group that is devoted to knitting prayer shawls.

Some folks also call these “comfort shawls.”

The idea of a prayer/comfort shawl is right in the name. This is simply a handmade gift to let someone know that they are in your thoughts and prayers, and that you would like to give them comfort.

The shawl is frequently given to someone going through a tough time — a personal loss, financial difficulty, depression, illness, and so on.

You can find a collection of free knitting patterns for shawls here.

Prayer cloths are a similar concept; I explained it in more detail here, but to summarize, it’s a smaller version of the prayer shawl.

Prayer cloths are far more portable than prayer shawls. Also, they often make better gifts for gentlemen (many of whom don’t seem to take to shawls, for some reason…) as well as children.

You can find two free knitting patterns for prayer cloths in my eBooklet “Quick Charity Knitting Wins.” When you subscribe to my Knitting Nuggets Newsletter here, you can get it right away!

The Purpose of Prayer Shawl/Cloth Cards 

So let’s circle back to what I said earlier about a few well-chosen words making all the difference.

The gift of a prayer/comfort shawl or cloth does have meaning on its own, of course. However, when the knitter (or crocheter) lets the recipient know how much care, prayers, blessings, and/or thoughts went into the shawl or cloth’s creation, the recipient will fully know that this was a labor of love.

This is where a sweet, simple card can make such a difference.

But sometimes, we’re simply at a loss for words! For knitters, it is often so much easier to express ourselves through fiber than with words.

Fortunately, I have a solution for you! I’ve designed a lovely set of printable and customizable cards. You’ll see a sample image below.

Prayer Shawl Cards

As you can see, you can alter this card to fit the way you would like to word your comfort. Some people prefer not to make reference to prayers or blessings. Others like to offer thoughts, prayers, and/or blessings.

At the end, you can replace “Your Name” with your name. Or you can erase the text that reads “Your Name” and sign the card, if you want to give it an even more personal touch.

To access this set of cards, click the image above to be taken to the download page!

I hope you find these printable prayer shawl/cloth cards to be just the touch you need to express your desire to offer comfort and love to your recipients!

Want more free knitting patterns for charity? Click here for your copy of “4 Quick Charity Knitting Wins” and start making a difference today!

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9 Comments

  1. Hi there! Up until now when knitting for charity, I’ve stuck mostly to knitting prem booties/cardies/hats for the local neonatal unit. I never thought about prayer/comfort shawls…what a great idea (plus I love the idea of a printed card passing on blessings). I’ll be having a good look at all the patterns before I decide which one to make, but thank you for the idea and the pattern suggestions!
    Please accept MY blessings.
    Vonnie x

  2. I am having problems making copies of the prayer shawl cards from microsoft word. When I go to print, it says it’s too large to print and I have to drag the lines from the second page to the first. I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong. Thank you.

    1. Hi Frances, I get that warning too. The good news is that you can ignore it! It’ll print normally. (I don’t know why that warning pops up – maybe something to do with printer settings, but I’m too lazy to worry since it *does* work.)

  3. The printables are awesome. But, I can’t download them on my IPad. Don’t know why though. The sayings are awesome. I’m planning on making some of the prayer cloths to send to my Grandson and his platoon. He is in the Marines.

    1. Hi Deborah! Can you not download the printables, or can you not open them? If you can’t download them, I can e-mail them to you. If you can’t open them, it might be because perhaps you don’t have Microsoft Word on your iPad. Let me know and we can figure this out together! 🙂 I’m excited to hear that you’ll make some of the prayer cloths for your grandson and his platoon. I’m very thankful for their service!