Sewing for Hope donates 50 quilts to Auburn Lions for children fighting cancer
BY SCOTT STEPHENSON
There’s a little quilting group located near Auburn that’s been quietly but mightily making an impact on people’s lives all over the world for almost 15 years, and as an added bonus, they’re keeping unwanted fabric out of landfills, and having a ton of fun while they do it!
Through programs like Heart to Hearts Quilts, these quilters have crafted a tremendous number of blankets and garments for people from as far away as Zimbabwe and as near as Huron County. Worldwide, there are hospitals, hospices, missions, shelters, communities and homes that are all now just a little bit warmer than they were before these quilters offered them a little piece of their own hearts in the form of practical objets d’art in the tradition of rural homecraft. Fifty of their latest pieces are already earmarked for the Auburn Lions Club (ALC), which is collecting quilts for children with cancer, but more creations are almost certainly on the way from this prolific collective.
ALC President Audrey Patterson knows that the collective’s current batch of quilts will brighten the day for children in need.“They’re beautiful quilts, and there’s a variety for boys and girls,” she said. “I think this is an amazing group for the community. It’s so great that they are willing to donate to different causes. And the set-up they have here is amazing... 50 quilts is a lot of quilts to be donating!”
According to group co-founder Gerrie Bos, all the sewing got started back in 2019. “Marilyn [Bruinsma] called me to see if I could help her make dresses for Haiti. So we did that, and I don’t even know how many dresses we put together!” That was the year that a massive earthquake devastated the island, leaving many Haitians homeless with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The sewers worked out of Bos’ home, using their combined skills and the materials they had on hand to create new clothes for the aid effort. “Once we had them all done, my daughter was going to Zimbabwe with a group for the first time, and she said ‘could you make some more?’”
For this second round of sewing, more fabric was required, so the ladies sought out some donations from nearby community members, which also helped spread the word about what they were up to. “One by one, we got more people to join the sewing group,” Bos recalled. When the Zimbabwe dress project came to an end, the donations of fabric kept on coming in. “For the first few years, we didn’t make a lot of quilts - we didn’t have the material for it. Once that material started coming in, we made dresses, we made shorts, we made pants.” This women-led team might just be the antidote to the curse that is modern fast fashion. “Whatever material you have, you look at it, and say ‘what can we make? Nothing goes to the garbage,” Bos said firmly.
Co-founder Bruinsma had previously collaborated with Bos on the costumes for a Christmas play, so teaming up again to make clothing for Haiti was an easy decision. “Then we just kept on sewing,” she explained. “I’m more a sewer than a quilter - the other girls are more talented than I am, but that’s what you want in a group.” In the years since 2010, they’ve been asked by other homegrown local charitable groups to donate work to more nearby causes, like the Huron Women’s Shelter in Goderich. “The more local we can sew, the better,” she said.
The group is on its second workshop - the current iteration of which is located in the basement of the home of member Marita Oudshoorn. “When Gerrie had to move to an apartment building, we almost thought it was the end of the group, and the end of the sewing. I said to my husband that I’d like to keep things going - it’s our social time, and it’s fun to have everybody together! We started in my old house, at the farm, and then when we built the new house here a year and a half ago, we said that the basement needed to be large enough for the sewing room - for all this!” Oudshoorn gestured at all the machines, equipment, fabric and notions that the space was designed specifically to hold. “We make nice stuff, and we come up with the ideas. What one person doesn’t know, another will know. And we all crave that social time, even if it’s just getting together once a week.”
Ellen Nyland of Wingham remembers how she first became part of the crew two years ago. “I’m a friend of Marita’s, and she was talking about this group, and for me, to make something at home, but I don’t need more stuff in my house! So now, I make stuff, and then it comes here, and then it goes somewhere else.” In terms of where exactly, the quilts and clothing are going - there’s a colour-coded guide taped to the workshop wall. There’s a yellow tag that says “Dominican Republic”, an orange one that reads “Nunavut”, red for “Nicaragua”. “It’s such a good feeling!” Nyland exclaimed. “And it’s such wonderful socializing - I always joke that I come for the coffee!” Nyland may love to joke around, but she’s not just there for the coffee - she crochets, knits and does fiddley stuff like put elastic in pants. “Ann [Feagan] made a quilt though, that was so friggin’ cute! I wanted to know where that quilt was going, because it was so fun, and she gave it to a family in Lucknow - they were so happy with it! And we’re so happy that they are so happy with the quilt! Win everywhere! Sometimes, we get stuff donated, and you look at it, and we go - ‘what do we make with this?’ Then somebody comes with an idea, and we run with it!”
Feagan lives in the western suburb of Nile, and became involved with the group when the Auburn branch of the Women’s Institute was making quilts for victims of the Goderich tornado. One thing led to another, and Feagan found her own set of skills becoming a permanent part of the collective’s patchwork. “We build quilts here, and we make what the fabrics want to be. If it’s fleece, it doesn’t necessarily want to be a quilt; we’ll make it into a hoodie. Or if it’s flannelette, we’re making pyjamas!” She also tries to document as much of their output as she can. “I just keep taking photos of what we do!” On this particular Wednesday, Feagan was also in charge of another important part of the process - the food. “I’ve been up since 5:30 making sure there’s lunch ready for us today - beef soup!”
Martha Sol also found her place in the group through a friendship with Oudshoorn. “We’re both from the Netherlands, and people from the Netherlands always cling together a little bit. I knew she had this group, and I think I was dropping off something about half a year ago, and I just kept coming, and I just kept doing stuff.” Sol has been quilting since she lived in the Netherlands. She’s also a sweater maker who appreciates learning new skills from the others. “You learn so many other things,” she said. “And it’s social, which is so good!”
The quilting group first joined forces to help faraway people deal with unimaginable global tragedies, but over the years, they’ve found that their collective can also be helpful in offering respite for the sorrows that are closest to their hearts of their own members. When Bos’ husband passed away of Alzheimer’s last year at the age of 91, she knew that she wouldn’t be going it alone. Not as long as there are people in the world that need a quilt that’s made with love.