Stitched with love: Quilters Guild’s work wraps patients with warm thoughts

For patients at Alabama Hospice Care of Birmingham, a quilt doesn’t just keep them warm. When it’s made by the Birmingham Quilters Guild, that quilt is a reminder to those patients that someone is thinking about them.

“The patients absolutely love [the quilts]. Whenever they receive it, they just light up and are so appreciative,” hospice administrator Laura Swinford said. “We have some that just break down in tears because that will be the only gift that they might have gotten in a while.”

So far, 29 quilts have made it from the hands and sewing machines of the Quilters Guild to the laps of clients at Alabama Hospice Care, located on Gadsden Highway. Each quilt was sewn with a tag: “Made especially for you by the Birmingham Quilters Guild.”

The quilts are given as part of the Guild’s Cuddle Quilt project, said Cuddle Quilt Chair and 50-year quilter Jan Tennant. Members of the guild are asked to make at least one quilt to give away to hospitalized children, teens in foster care and local charities including Jessie’s Place, SafeHouse of Shelby County and Three Hots and a Cot. Last year they made 178 Cuddle Quilts.

“It’s probably one of the most joyful jobs,” Tennant said. As the chair of the project, she gets to choose the charities and help to deliver them.

Guild president and 15-year quilter Claire Gregory said she likes to see “how much it will mean to someone to snuggle up in [the quilt] and give it a hug. We feel like it’s a hug from our guild.”

This was the first time Alabama Hospice Care was on the list of recipients. The Guild had been looking for ways to give back to the older population around Birmingham, while Swinford was searching for ways to provide more to the patients in hospice care. Once they got in touch, the connection just worked.

“It’s usually geared toward children, but we have recently asked [guild members] to remember the elderly also,” Tennant said.

“They were more than willing to help us out with what we needed,” Swinford said. “We just want to show [hospice patients] that we care for them. We love doing everything that we can for our patients. By giving homemade gifts like that, kind of brightens their day.”

There’s no limit to the skill or artistic creativity quilters can put into their Cuddle Quilts, though Tennant does ask for cheerful colors and patterns. The only requirement is that the quilts are made entirely out of cotton, so the recipients can easily wash and dry them.

“What comes out of our hands is just amazingly different. Some are just so simple, little geometric blocks, and some are so elaborate,” Gregory said.

When she delivered the first group of quilts, Tennant said Swinford sorted through the stack and could immediately pick out which quilts certain patients would love.

“After the first batch she went wild. She was just thrilled,” Tennant said. “She knew exactly who she was going to give each one to as she went through the pile.”

Some of those recipients included four military veterans, who received their quilts on Veterans Day. Swinford said the veterans and the hospice staff were moved by the gesture. Hospice patient Nancy Jordan also received a quilt in late November. Jordan’s entire face lit up when Swinford told her she would be given a quilt. She picked out a bright green quilt covered in rectangles of different colors.

“I just can’t get over it. This is great,” Jordan said.

The Cuddle Quilts aren’t a one-time gift. Tennant said that as Alabama Hospice Care runs out of quilts, they can contact the Guild to send more.

“She knows where we are now. If she has a need, she just has to contact us,” Tennant said.

Swinford and fellow Alabama Hospice Care staff member Laina Simmons agreed that they want to keep giving quilts to make their patients’ days a little brighter.

“Hospice companies all do the same things,” Simmons said. “At Alabama Hospice Care, we try to make sure that we do things a little different for our patients. If it’s loving on them a little bit more, or bringing them a quilt or bringing them candy or helping them out with certain things, I think that’s what our goal is.”