Sewing for Hope celebrates 15 years of sewing together

A few of the Sewing for Hope members display their latest quilts and creations. Standing left to right: Marita Oudshoorn, co-ordinator, Judy Parker, Marilyn Bruinsma holding a twiddle-muff, Gerrie Bos. Sitting are Anne Faegan and Martha Sol holding a pair of shorts.

Sewing for Hope is a lively network of six to 10 women who gather every Wednesday to sew near Auburn, a little village between Goderich and Blyth.

The year 2025 marks their fifteenth year sewing as a group and donating hand-made items near and far. How will they celebrate? Keep making more stuff.

The women come together for many different reasons. They help each other finish projects; they spark each other’s creativity; they teach each other; they use up materials that might otherwise go to waste; they keep their minds and hands busy.

They feel happy knowing their time sewing is useful to others and, most of all, these women enjoy laughter and camaraderie while doing something they all love to do.

Although Sewing for Hope is known for making quilts, most in the group consider themselves sewers and knitters rather than quilters.

They also make multi-purpose bags, pillowcases, receiving blankets, baby caps and diapers, shorts, pajamas, hoodies, knitted hats and scarves, and so much more.

All yarn, fabrics, thread, notions, and even the sewing machines are donated. Costs are minimal, and what this group makes together and donates is priceless.

It all started with girls’ dresses in 2010. Marilyn Bruinsma and Gerrie Bos wanted to send support to Haiti after a devastating earthquake. Thinking about the urgent need of children who were left only with the clothes on their backs, they sewed almost a hundred cotton dresses, quickly using up their own fabric stashes.

Gerrie and Marilyn appealed to their networks of family and friends for fabric donations and helpers and just kept on sewing to support organizations such as “Village of Hope” in Zimbabwe.

After the tornado left a swath of damage in 2011, these women joined with other local groups to make quilts and brought more women into the fold. There were enough sewers on board and enough fabric donations to meet regularly and the group decided to be called “Sewing for Hope.”

Supporting local need is close to their hearts. The Alzheimer’s Society in Clinton and seven long term care homes in the area have received 400 lap quilts and blankets and another 300 knitted twiddle muffs (a soft knitted tube worn on the hands, decorated with thingamabobs to keep restless hands from picking).

Sewing for Hope also makes and donates to individuals in their community, local day cares, neonatal and cancer programs, as well as to mission groups in northern Ontario and abroad.

Gerrie jokes that “If we all had come from the same church or had the same circle of friends, our group would have run out of fabric years ago, and we would have thought that our work was done.”

Donations from the community are truly appreciated and every scrap is utilized. When a group member is asked to do a show and tell presentation, she often comes home with a few boxes of donated fabrics or yarn or partially done projects that need finishing.

Ann Feagan says that “it’s all good. Nothing goes to waste. We look at the fabric, and think about what it wants to be.”

Plain coloured cottons might become pillow cases or quilt backs. A yard of flannel can make two receiving blankets or a pair of pajama bottoms and the scraps can make a diaper or sanitary pad. A baby quilt panel might need a border with a few stitches added to finish.

A couple yards of pretty print or calico will make a dress or quilt top. Leftover scraps are cut into squares and strips and made into even more quilts. Even fabric sample decks from furniture stores can be sewn into small toiletry bags or pencil cases.

If Sewing for Hope can’t use it, they pass it on. These women are truly Huron County’s great recyclers.

“Opening a package of donated fabrics feels like Christmas,” adds Marita Oudshoorn, the group’s coordinator.

“I get so excited thinking about all of the things we can make.”

Donations are recorded in a humble brown notebook, 160+ entries over fifteen years. A couple afternoons spent tallying revealed over 16,000 items had been donated over 15 years.

Even the members themselves were astonished at what Sewing for Hope had donated. Over 1,200 quilts, 3,400 bags, 4,600 items of clothing (dresses, shorts, pants, hoodies, underwear) 700 cloth diapers, 1,500 items for babies (receiving blankets, sleep bags, newborn caps, etc.), 1,700 knitted hats, scarves and slippers, to name a few.

Sewing for Hope would gladly accept fabric and yarn and new members so they can keep making.

If you know someone that wants to share or clear out their stash, or want to discuss a specific need, contact Marita at oudshoorn@hurontel.on.ca