Making a gown from a wedding dress

I decided to use my sister's donated wedding dress to make a gown for TOL.  It turned out to be such a beautiful gown.  I first washed the pieces I was going to use.  I cut out the lace using TOL pattern and cut out lining pieces.

I laid the lace on top of the lining and machine basted the pieces together.

I finished the sleeve edge with a little lace and zigzaged over the the ribbon forming a casing for ribbon tie.  Another idea would be to sew a casing by stitching two rows and threading ribbon through, between the lace and lining.

I then sewed the sleeves to front and back of gown. Pattern calls for a narrow seam.

After sleeves, then sew side seams, and hem back.  No need to hem gown with this beautiful scallop on the lace, forming the bottom of the gown.

Last step is to gather neck and put on neck binding.  Then thread ribbon through binding.  And it is done!  Not any more difficult than our usual gowns but what a beauty for a little precious one.

Last picture is of my granddaughter, a seamstress (I am teaching her), a fashionista, and future Threads of Love member.

Lovely Lace

This represents a very small portion of the lace donated by Rhonda Finney.  She donated a large 16 gal container of heirloom lace to our chapter to make beautiful bereavement gowns.  She had this lace for a long time from when she used to work at a special store for heirloom baby gowns.  Now because her heart belongs to Threads of Love, she has given us this wonderful lace that will last us a long time and every gown will be so beautiful and special for our parents.


Another topic:  I was invited to talk to another group of church ladies to see if they are interested in helping.  I already received a call today for donation of fabric which I will pick up tomorrow.  The Lord continues to provide for us and our mission.

Items for Arrowhead this Month

We donated 25 blankets, 6 isolette covers, 4 bereavement sets, and 20 lovie dolls to ARMC this week for the month of August.  Amazingly they use that many little blankets each month.  When I entered, the manager pointed out all the isolettes with our covers, they love them!!  They are excited about trying out the lovie dolls, a new addition for our parents and preemies. 

As for Labor and Delivery a somber reminder of why we are doing this; I replaced four gown sets from last month and the nurse said a mother is losing a 36 wk baby that day.  I said we would pray for her and her family.  I am so glad our efforts are done with prayers and turned over with a prayer.......

Lovie Dolls

We made these Lovie dolls at the last meeting.  Aren't they cute?  The purpose of lovie dolls is to comfort a premature baby with the mother's scent.  The mother helps by sleeping with the doll and then the nurse places the doll into the isolette. All TOLhospitals like to use them so I thought we would try them with our two hospitals this month.

June Meeting

 Here we are at our new "home" top of a sister's garage.  This is our hand sewing station, sewing on labels. At the table are Sisters Willmuth, Bigelow, Startup, Chudy, and Moser.

First station

 This is our tying table for our isolette covers for the NICU for two of our hospitals.  Seated are Sisters Fleming and Hanson.

Second station

 We are standing next to our sewing table with six sewing machines and a serger. This is an isolette cover we finished that day, ready for the hospital.  Our hospitals love the covers, we give out 12 a month to the two hospitals, Redlands and Arrowhead.  I am on the right and Debbie Johnston is on the left with her completed isolette cover.

Third station

National Threads of Love Conference in Lousiana

Steve and Diana Reints traveled to Lousiana for the 2012 Threads of Love National Conference April 25-28, 2012.  They opted to drive the 3 day(each way), 3000 mile round trip in order to bring all their sewing machines and supplies.  That's dedication!!

  Once there, they were able to meet Sissy Davis, the founder of Threads of Love and many other members of TOL chapters. The conference included inspirational speakers, sewing classes and displays from chapters around the US. 

The following text and photos were provided by Diana Reints.  

~Christine Reints

Diana Reints in the Luncheon Room getting ready for the conference.

Diana Reints

The Luncheon area was beautiful.  Each lunch for the two days was made home cooked.  Sissy Davis, Threads of Love founder is the lady on the left.

Sissy Davis (left), Founder of Threads of Love

Here are what some of the classes looked like.  The members picked up ideas and skills during that week to bring back to their chapter.

Steve Reints

At the conference other chapters brought some of their work for display.  Each chapter has a slightly difference flavor to the treatment of sewn baby items. 

The conference provided many speakers for those attending. One speaker was a parent who lost a stillborn and other speakers were several nurses at the hospitals.

And lastly here is me, Diana Reints, at the wing needle class at the Threads of Love 2012 Conference in Louisiana.  

Diana Reints

reintsfam@aol.com

New Hospital Adopted

This month we adopted a new hospital, Parkview Community Hospital in Riverside, Ca.  The nurses loved the bereavement gowns and the wrappers.  They only had blankets and caps and it wasn't really working well for their little ones.  One nurse said the bonnet is better because a cap keeps falling off.  The one item they really appreciated was the wrapper for the babies who weighs only ounces.  The nurses kept opening and closing and tying the wrapper, imagining one of the little babies in it and felt it was the coolest thing ever.  They said the prayer was beautiful and had one suggestion, that we put the prayer in Spanish!  So we are going to put the Spanish version on the other side.  

Parkview is a non-profit hospital which means they are very needy and appreciative of our help.  Their mothers go home with few clothes for the baby and made a suggestion of making simple baby clothesout of the fabric we can't use for gowns. By the time I left, there were about 8 nurses crowded into the office looking at the gowns and when I asked if we could adopt them, they all shouted, "yes".

Diana Reints

Our Meetings

Our Threads of Love meetings are every third Tuesday of the month.  We have so much fun, making the baby things for the hospitals and parents.  We sew on the machines, sew on labels, tie the isolette covers and much more.  The members discuss our goals for the chapter and the joy we find in serving the families of these little ones.  At the end of the meeting, we sit around and eat lunch and talk.  We look forward to our meeting each month so we can get our items ready for distribution.

Diana Reints

(Photos by Steve Reints)

Getting Thank You Notes

Most of our hospitals are sending us thank you notes.  It's always nice to receives these notes as they take the time to prepare them to show us they appreciate our services.  We received one from Redlands.  I called about our order for this month.  They have used a lot of our things and are ready for delivery for tomorrow.  

Sisters, we do such a professional job, we should be proud of our donations.  We have gotten many complements from the nurses these last months on the quality and beauty of our baby things.  I know our message of Heavenly Father's Love is helping as I have hear this from parents and from staff that give out the prayers.

~Diana Reints

ARMC Visit

Every month we deliver to Arrowhead Medical Center NICU unit with isolette covers and blankets and vests.  The nurses love the items we make and use them every month; they look forward to our visit.  The unit has over 20 beds.  The isolette covers here are used to shut out the light and let the babies sleep.  Here is the nurse's station where the delivery is made.

~Diana Reints

Diana dropping off some isolette covers

Diana with Laura, the charge nurse

one of our isolette covers 

nice pop of color alongside all the necessary medical equipment

We visited the NICU at ARMC this past Tuesday.  They were so busy!  Laura, the charge nurse, told us that they had just gotten 3 new babies right before we arrived.  In addition to the newest admissions, there were babies everywhere!!  The unit was full to capacity with precious preemie and newborn babies!!  Everywhere I looked there were babies sleeping or being held; some hooked up to soooo many wires and tubes :(.  We even saw some micro preemie babies weighing no more than a pound!  So sweet! ...and tiny!

It really touched me to see so many of TOLIE's gowns, isolette covers, and blankets in use.  The colors and prints added so much to the technical and sterile environment of the unit!  ~Christine E. Reints

Isolette Covers

Did you know that Threads of Love IE also makes Isolette covers?  Each cover is fully lined with blackout fabric. The cover is designed to drape over the NICU Isolette and block out light to help the baby sleep. When the baby is ready to go home the blanket is then given to the family as a keepsake.  

These covers are so popular we are constantly being asked for more from our hospitals!

Here are a couple of Isolette Covers ready to be finished and donated. Aren't they sweet?

(Text and photos by Christine E. Reints)

Donated Fabrics

Kudos to Diana R. who orchestrated getting several boxes of fabric for our chapter from her daughter's ward. We recently received yards and yards of fabric that we can use for vests, gowns, and isolete covers.  It was a wonderful idea to spread the word to others that we need fabric donations.  We have gotten great responses this year.  

Diana R. loves to receive the fabric as she is the cutter in the group.  The process starts with her.  She cuts out all the patterns and sends them on to me to make the kits to distribute to the volunteers.  This process would be more difficult without her service.  Thank you, Diana!

~Diana Reints

(Photos by Christine E. Reints)

Crocheted Caps

Our packets that we give to the parents would not be complete without a matching cap.   Juanita C. loves to crochet and has crocheted many of our beautiful caps that we put into all the packets.  They complete the sets so beautifully; it makes the babies look like little angels.  Juanita makes up bonnets for the burial gowns, most of which are white with a few colored ones; and she crochets NICU caps to fit over the preemie's head to keep the baby comfortable. Here are pictures of the caps ready for the NICU unit.

~Diana Reints

(Photos by Christine E. Reints)