Sewing With Nancy

I'm always amazed and enlightened when I hear about volunteer sewing groups that use their talent to help others. Please welcome Deborah Michie, who is one of the unselfish stitchers and part of the Stitchin' for Kids group in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Welcome to Sewing With Nancy, Deborah. Thank you very much. Delighted to be here. Stitchin' for Kids is a remarkable organization of dedicated stitchers, sewers, knitters, and give our viewers a little history-- or history as well as what you do for children. Okay. We've been doing this for about nine years. It was started by a woman named Caroline Archer, who, through a series of events, wound up winning a Jefferson Award for them, for the project. She started making the clothes and taking them to hospitals, and it exploded from there because the hospitals were so glad to have them. They're for children who are in the hospitals for long-term stays for cancers or heart transplants. Sure. And the nurses have said that they're perfect for the children's healing. They're very important for the children's healing. They play. - Sure. And especially if they don't have hair, they can comb the hair and, you know, that kind of thing. So you purchase little dolls. We buy the dolls, and then we make the outfits. We have probably 25 people or so at this point who are sewing the outfits. And these are not small tasks. - No. Because they're very detailed, because, like, this is a swimwear outfit. You have a cap, little swimsuit, a cover-up. There's even a beach bag. - Mm-hmm. So they're very complete. - That's right. And then-- I will just hold these up to everyone. You can give a little... - Okay. These are... Individual people make these things. So someone will maybe make a lot of pants and a lot of tops, and then someone will make something like that. And we'll put them together into outfits. So everybody has to make every little piece of the outfit. And what we're not showing you is that there are shoes, there are handbags, there are little accessories that work out so well. And whether they're interested in knitting... There's a tam and a little Scottish-- a little tartan plaid and a top. What a way to pass time and heal while you're doing this. Yes. Yes, absolutely. It's good for the people and the children. -

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It's good for everyone. Now, explain what all goes into a box to a child. Okay, so... the child will get a doll, one of these dolls; they're 14" dolls. And they will get a box full of 12 to 14 individual outfits, all with shoes and jewelry and purses and whatever goes with it. There's also a sleeping bag for the doll. Sure. There's a quilt that goes into the bag. A doll-size quilt that goes into the box. There's a tote bag so they can carry things around. My goodness. We make boxes; we hand-make the boxes that will hold shoes and hair accessories, and there's a little shopping bag with flowers in it-- I mean, little things that they can play with. That all goes into one box for the children. And you donate about twice a year, April and October. April and October. And we give eight boxes, plus eight dolls, to four different hospitals in the Bay Area twice a year, so that's 64 boxes and... A lot of... - 64 dolls. And it figures out to over 800 complete outfits. But then, little boys... - And then little boys. We have a cute little racing car area here. Let's open this up, and the race cars are gonna kind of zoom right out, but they have a track. There are pockets for the race cars. And they can zoom around and play. You have fish, and also we have a little snake here on the side that's really sweet. This is a comfort snake. Comforts kids around-- we put it around their neck or whatever. And these are all so well made. Yes. Yes, the quality is amazing. One of your goals is to go beyond the San Francisco Bay Area. Yes. Yes. Yes, we do have a hospital in Seattle at the moment. But I would love to see it go across the country and, you know, have people do this for children in the long-term stay hospitals in their cities. But we need to have sewers and knitters and... Sure. Sure. Organizers. Well, I'm sure the word will get out, Deborah... I hope so. And that they can contact Stitchin' for Kids and... Yes, stitchinforkids.org, yes. Dot org, and we can also-- on the Sewing With Nancy site, we will be able to give all the information. Thank you for being our guest. - My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. - You're welcome. I know you've enjoyed this program, especially our interview, as well as our program with Judy Gauthier on "Rainbow Quilts for Scrap Lovers." You can re-watch the program or many other Sewing With Nancy programs at NancyZieman.com. And you can also join us on our blog, Facebook, and other social media outlets. So as I say at each program, thanks for joining me. Bye for now.