Fabulous fabrics for a special cause
Mary MacGuigan remembers her grandmother teaching her the art of sewing. She was a teenager at the time, but her love of sewing has never gone away.
“I have a Brother sewing machine and a lovely view out the window, so it’s a very pleasant retreat, and something I love to do,” MacGuigan says.
As an avid seamstress, she typically has plenty of excess fabric lying around at her Falmouth residence. When it became clear last summer that masks were going to be a part of life for the foreseeable future, MacGuigan had an idea.
“I thought I would just start making masks and giving them to family, friends and neighbours,” she recalls. “It was something I could do safely from home.”
As sewing is one of MacGuigan’s true passions, her mask inventory soon began edging towards 150. She began to sell them from a table in her driveway, with proceeds going to Feed Nova Scotia.
“I would take the table out, lay out the masks and stay at a safe distance. People would come and pick out their masks and leave the donation on the table,” she recalls.
MacGuigan chose Feed Nova Scotia as the recipient for a couple of reasons.
“Food insecurity is always an issue, and that became even more apparent as people began losing their jobs,” she says. “I also wanted a known entity, so people would know exactly where their money was going.”
The Masking for a Cause project wrapped up in November, but MacGuigan remained active in the community, volunteering at Windsor Makers Studio, which offers a retail outlet for talented artists in the region.
“I was managing the sewing area and all of the fabrics that had been donated,” she recalls. “And there was a huge amount of material.”
While pondering what to do with the excess material, MacGuigan saw a photo of a walker caddy – essentially a double-sided apron with pockets – that allows users to carry personal effects. She came up with a design and presented it to the occupational therapist and outreach staff at Windsor Elms Village.
“They liked what they saw, so we made about 25 of them.”
A team of volunteers at Makers Studio created the first batch of walker caddies, which were distributed to Elms Village and the Windsor Regional Hospital, and more caddies are in production.
MacGuigan also received a request from a friend undergoing chemotherapy, asking if she could come up with a custom head scarf.
“We started making reversible printed caps to donate to hospitals,” MacGuigan says. “They’re packaged securely, so they’ve only been touched by the person who did the sewing.”
Other volunteers created three baby quilts which were then donated to Caremongers of Windsor-West Hants.
“It’s all about taking this wonderful material that has been donated and thinking about how we can turn it around to make something for people in need in the community.”
MacGuigan and her husband moved to Falmouth in 2017, after living in South Carolina, North Carolina, Winnipeg and Ontario. She has always found volunteering to be the best way to connect with the community.
“You meet like-minded people, who have a spirit of giving,” she says. “That’s how a community works.”