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Group puts love, sympathy in every stitch of infant burial gowns |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Sunday, 30 May 2004 |
This kind of comfort can't be purchased in stores.
A Decatur group uses sewing skills to reach out in love by making dainty gowns that will be worn only for burial. Then they provide them to bereaved parents they'll probably never meet.
Each member of the Decatur Smocking & Heirloom Sewing Guild makes six to eight Wee Care gowns a year in four sizes they call "teeny tiny," tiny, preemie and newborn.
They keep local hospitals supplied with sizes so that nurses can offer the free gowns to mothers of stillborn babies or premature infants that don't survive.
The gowns of soft batiste, in white or the palest of pastel colors, are decorated with hand-embroidery or smocking, ribbon and lace — much like the christening gown or Easter dress the baby will never have.
"It's a labor of love," said Carolyn Cooper of Hartselle, who has made dozens of the gowns during the seven years she has been a guild member. In the past, such a small infant might have been wrapped in a receiving blanket, because no store-bought outfits would fit a baby the size of a hand or smaller, she said.
"It's in our hearts to do what we have the ability to do," Cooper said. "Since the Lord gave us the ability to sew, this is something we can do to say we're sorry. Most of us cry while we're making these, but we know we're helping mothers, fathers and grandparents to know that their little precious baby has something to be buried in. They won't have to go out and try to find something while grieving."
Cooper said most of hers have been sewn in the "teeny-tiny" size, for babies that weigh around a pound. "It breaks your heart sometimes; they look like they're for a doll."
Members often receive thank-you notes from families, because they enclose a "gift of love" card from the guild that gives the name of the member who made the gown. "I've gotten many, including one note I wouldn't take anything in the world for," Cooper said.
Betty Dennis of Decatur has been making these gowns for about six years, since she retired and joined the smocking and sewing group. They get together quarterly to cut the pieces from fabric, and then members sew and decorate the gowns at home.
"I cried most of the time with the first one I made, and I don't guess you ever really get over that," she said. And when a friend had to bury a baby in one of the gowns, it made it even harder.
Dennis decorates her gowns for baby girls with smocking and puts a bit of lace around the sleeves; ribbon ties decorate the back openings. "Those who are good with embroidery put that on the front, and some make what we used to call 'day gowns' for boys, with buttons down the front."
The Decatur Smocking & Heirloom Sewing Guild meets at Joys Creative Sewing, where owner Joyce Moore made the first of these gowns nearly nine years ago.
"The first year I was in business here, I got a call from a grief counselor at Decatur General, where a woman was about to deliver stillborn premature twins. They were looking for gowns about 7 or 8 inches long."
Moore got out a gown pattern and kept taking it to the copy machine and reducing the size until she had it right. "I worked frantically that afternoon, sewing and doing a couple of rows of smocking, and I took the two gowns over to the hospital," she recalled.
"That's how I knew there was a need, and since then I've had calls from all over Alabama from people who have heard about this project," said Moore. "I've even had out-of-state people to call, and we'd overnight them a gown."
A similar service project, called Grady Gowns, is carried out through Grady Hospital in Atlanta. Moore said the Embroiderers' Guild in Decatur was the first group to do this, but they couldn't keep up with the need, so the Smocking and Heirloom Sewing group took it on as a community service project. They call it the "Rusty Barr Wee Care Gown Program" in memory of a Decatur child whose mother, Sandy, was in smocking and sewing classes with many in the group.
The 20 or so guild members buy the fabric from the shop at cost, and they've made their own patterns in four sizes.
"Most of us are grandmas, and every stitch is made with love for these babies that won't grow up," Moore said
http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/livingtoday/040528/care.shtml |
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