GREENVILLE — The Chamberlain Free Library in Greenville is usually a quiet place, and its librarians, Brenda Cassidy and Diane Steele, would have it so. But after lunch on Tuesdays, a dozen or so women make their way up the front steps and, chatting all the while, take off their coats, settle in around a large table in the stacks, and begin to knit.

Nearly all are old enough to have grandchildren, and Lynne Saucier has even brought her granddaughter along — but the recipients of the hats, mittens and blankets that they crank out at an astonishing rate won’t be family members. In most cases, they won’t even be people the women know. Knit for a Cause, as the group’s name implies, donates everything to charity.

The knitters began assembling at Chamberlain Free three years ago, according to Cassidy. She and friend began knitting for fun, and decided to donate the blankets and lap throws they made to the Community Hospice House in Merrimack, where Cassidy’s daughter works. A few posters and phone calls later, Knit for a Cause was born.

“A lot of libraries knit,” said Cassidy between trips to the library’s kitchen last Tuesday, where she prepared coffee and brought it out to the busy knitters in Styrofoam cups. “But not all of them do it for charity.”

Last year, Knit for a Cause donated more than 1,000 items to groups and organizations in New Hampshire and beyond. The numbers for this year are still rising, according to Cassidy, but she expects them to be equal to or greater than last year’s. Recipients of Knit for a Cause’s donations range from the Monadnock Community Hospital (baby hats) and Summer Hill Assisted Living in Peterborough (socks) to Greenville Elementary School and the New Ipswich Congregational Church food pantry (hats and mittens) to the Michigan-based Warmth for Warriors (wool helmet-liners for troops overseas). And for four-legged creatures in need, the group sends dog and cat blankets to the Animal Rescue League of New Hampshire in Bedford.

The library sponsored the group while it was getting off the ground, but now Knit for a Cause runs on the same thing it supplies: donations.

They knit with donated wool, and two years ago, they raffled off afghans to raise money for what Cassidy calls “special wool” — wool that is exceptionally soft.

The ladies’ enthusiasm, according to Steele, is unflagging. While most people donate, volunteer, and generally spread good will during the holiday season, Knit for a Cause runs year-round. “After the first year, we thought maybe they’d break for summer,” said Steele in the storage closet where she stages donations. “But they didn’t.” She then gestured to a towering pile of blankets and afghans, all ready to be packed up and sent away.

Back in the stacks, loud chatter all but covered the clink-clink-clink of knitting needles.

Myrtle St. Pierre, whose lap blanket-in-progress is already beginning to cover her legs, joked about having too many stitches.

“I’m supposed to be at 60, and I have 113!” she exclaims. “I don’t think I’m going to finish this until next Christmas.” Everyone laughed and consoled her, and Cassidy gently suggested that she begin to decrease her stitches. “Oh, I already am!” St. Pierre replied.

Cassidy acknowledges that the weekly session is as much social as it is altruistic. “It’s a good thing for people who come to knit, and for the people who get the donations,” she said.

Anne Marie LaBossiere, hard at work on a hat, agreed. “That’s what we do,” she said. “We come and talk and knit.”

LaBossiere said she and several of the women had started their own knitting group at Greenville Falls Elderly Housing. They meet twice a week in the common room for unofficial Knit for a Cause sessions.

“They even give us the coffee!” LaBossiere said of the Falls staff.

After a while, the women’s conversations subside as they focus more deeply on their hats, blankets and dishtowels.

None of them has touched the Hostess donuts or store-bought cookies in the middle of the table. A semblance of quiet returns to the library — at least for now.

This article appears in the Dec. 27, 2011, edition of the Ledger-Transcript.