Community service sewing: Sewing Guild making fidget quilts for area senior care homes

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) -A group of area sewing connoisseurs are quilting for a cause.

The Western Wisconsin Indianhead chapter of America Sewing Guild dedicates one month each calendar year to a community service project, and this March, seniors in nursing and assisted living facilities are on the receiving end.

This year, the group landed on fidget quilts.

Fidget quilts or sensory blankets, provide a form of stimulation that can be helpful to individuals with memory loss, or people who need to keep their hands busy such as patients with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.

The local chapter of the sewing guild decided all the fidget lap quilts made will be donated to several area assisted living and memory loss care centers in the area.

“Creativity is one of our main things, learning to sew and being creative and extending yourself, so these fidget quilts are just a perfect community service as well as giving us the chance as seamstresses or sewers to be really creative,” says chapter president Winnie Doxsie. “They make quilts and give them away, you make hats and mittens and you give them away, it’s just because you can make stuff.”

It gives the residents a chance to calm their minds and hands by giving them something to fidget with for sensory stimulation.

If anyone with a sewing machine and some basic sewing knowledge would like to join in on making fidget quilts, that is taking place Thursday March 24 starting at 10 a.m. at the Lake Street United Methodist Church.

Doxsie says they’ll be sewing away until about 2 p.m. and hope to make about 50 quilts to be donated.

“It’s just an all around sewing promotional, learning, sharing, group and we’re always looking for members,” Doxsie laughs.

To learn more about the Western Wisconsin Indianhead Chapter of the American Sewing Guild, see here.