Sewing With Nancy

Say the word "Binky" and an immediate image of a much loved, worn out blanket comes to my mind. Knowing that not all kids have a binky the Binky Patrol, a non-profit organization has made it their mission to provide homemade blankets to children who need such love in the form of a blanket. Joining me via Skype is Susan Finch the founder of Binky Patrol to explain how you can be part of giving smiles and comfort to kids with binkies. Welcome to Sewing with Nancy, Susan. Thank you, Nancy. I really appreciate the invitation. Well, when I read and talked to you earlier about Binky Patrol I learned that around the country 750,000 blankets have been made and given away I was blown away, impressed. What a great organization. Let's to a plus or minus 10% on that! Oh, that's okay! Even 600,000, that's remarkable. Tell me about the chapters that you have around the country. Well, we have so many volunteers. We have about 120 chapters right now. We have some that are very quiet. They aren't listed on our website. Some schools like to join us Girl Scouts troops, and churches so they keep that just to their little groups. But the volunteers are people that are looking for a way to easily make a difference. Without having to be on a schedule spend a lot of time, or have a lot of rules. We make it easy for them. Speaking of rules, sizes are large to small for the blankets. Yes, that's the range. It's difficult, especially for quilters, as you know when you say, "Make it big." They say, "No, how big?" They want dimensions. You can't, because we help kids of every age. So we need all sizes. You have them down to two feet square up to twin size, is the range. We had to do the two feet square because some people wanted airplane size. "What size can I make while I'm traveling?" and "What's good for strollers and car seats?" This is Sewing with Nancy, so we sew and quilt but you also have knitted and crocheted versions. Yes, and then the children have become quite fond of those no-sew fleece type where you tie the knots. Yes, at the ends. If that's what they want to make, I'm okay with that. You recently told me about a quilting bee type of thing that you had on Martin Luther King Day. Tell us a little bit more about that. Oh, "quilting bee" makes it sound so much more glamorous than it was. It was more like a big sweat shop for the day. We had 50 sewing machines in one location and we had another 60 volunteers or 75 depending on the time, sitting on the floors and at tables, cutting and making as many blankets as we could in six hours. We had donated fabrics and backings. It was fabulous. What did you achieve in those six hours? 135 blankets. Wow, that's totally impressive. These blankets are given to children infants to 18 years of age. Give a little summery of where some of these blankets have gone. When I started it I wanted to make sure that there were no limitations based on social or economic status so any child that's hurting. Anybody that needs comfort, so if a child is in a shelter, going into foster care maybe their parents have had some trauma and the children are upset. Those that are ill and abused there are so many organizations that focus just on sick children. We wanted to make sure it's the invisible child the one who gets forgotten. Oh, sure. Well, Binky Patrol certainly has covered a lot of people with love and comfort and warmth. Reading your website, I was impressed that you said no egos are involved. No. I have a real problem with people that will say "Nobody sent me a thank you note!" Well, if you worked in a shelter and you're trying to serve these children that's where your priorities should be not writing a thank you note. Even though they're nice, and we like to be appreciated but just make the blankets! Let's get them out. A lot of us have some fabric that's waiting to be sewn that someone could really enjoy. This would be a great organization to make a blanket for. We have some quilters who like to donate their scraps. You can do that, too. Just make sure it's not a "quilter's scrap." We need them about one foot big. Thank you for being my guest on Sewing with Nancy and for sharing the Binky Patrol. What a wonderful organization. Thanks for being with us. Thank you so much for having us. If you would like more information on the Binky Patrol

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nancyzieman.com where you'll find all things Sewing with Nancy. You can watch a repeat of this program you can watch 52 shows plus get information on a Nancy's Corner guest. Click on Nancy's Corner, then also on our guest Susan Finch of the Binky Patrol and you can find out how you can be involved. Well, I hope you've enjoyed this program on "Fancy Footworks 2." We'll be back next time with another episode. Bye for now.