I started Sew Knot Creative when I had a conversation with a friend who is a nurse at a local hospital. She asked if I could make some small blankets to wrap premature fetuses in which didn’t survive for the parents to say good bye, she had told me about how once they didn’t have anything to wrap the baby in. That touched my heart so much because I knew this was something simple for me to do something about, I wanted all these babies to be wrapped up so the grieving parents that someone else was also thinking of the and trying to offer a little comfort.
I have been making knitted beanies and little booties for these little ones and also started crocheting a trim around the blankets to make them a little special.
I am not so creative that I can develop my own designs for the beanies or booties; there are a lot of directions on the internet so I utilized these.
The very small booties and beanie pattern I have been using is one called “Jordan’s tiny bootie pattern” and “Jordan’s tiny hat pattern” these are very tiny. The slightly larger pattern I also use is from the Care Wear web site (
http:/www.carewear.org/) I found really easy bootie and beanie patterns there, the booties only take me ½ hour each to knit and stitch together and the beanie I can knit in an evening while I watch TV.
The little blankets that I started doing are mostly 2 rectangles of flannel sewn together, right sides together and then turned right sides out. I then will sew closed the opening and depending on how I feel I will leave the blanket plain or use my decorative stitches and add a little trim to the border.
I have been sewing for many, many years; my mother taught me how to sew by turning sheets on a treadle sewing machine. If any of you know what it means to turn a sheet you have an idea of how long I have been sewing. I then progressed to hand sewing doll clothes and since Mother didn’t really know how to sew so she gave me sewing lessons and I eventually started making my own clothes. Mother also taught me to never throw away any of my scraps (never used them for the longest time so I have a lot of scraps)
I like to quilt and have a ton of left over scraps from other projects and recently started making scrap quilts/lap rugs for convalescent homes and that was a natural progression to the little blankets for the premature babies. I have been amazed at how much I can use the smallest scrap for these little blankets, I just keep sewing smaller and smaller scraps into squares and half square triangles and then have fun arranging them.
I see such a need for these items for all our local hospitals and I am looking for others who would like to be part of this effort. I know there are a lot of compassionate sewers out there with large stashes of scraps of fabric needing to be used up.
Please contact me if you have a desire to help and also let me know if you have any patterns that you would like to share. I chose the name, Sew Knot Creative, because I am so not creative so I need your help. Although I will accept fabric donations, I really envision others making needed items and donating them to your local hospitals. How wonderful it would be if we could spread the joy of comfort to those parents at a time of need with a little blanket or beanie and bootie set to remember their lost child.
