Giving back, one thread at a time
Newport news quilt shop weaves itself into community with charity events
Before they officially opened their doors to the public, the owners of Sunshine Quilt Corner were collecting face masks to donate to Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters and a nursing home in Norfolk.
A few months after opening, co-owners Jennifer Moose and Teresa Newton started a monthly charity sew event at their Newport News shop to continue giving back to the community.
“We firmly believe in giving back to the community in a variety of ways,” Newton said. “It’s just embedded in our character — we always want to do something that can make an impact even in just a small way.”
Moose served as a Girl Scout troop leader and Newton was involved with the Boy Scouts before stepping down to open the store. They decided to open the shop to fill a void in the quilting and sewing community after Nancy’s Calico Patch and Blue Crab Quilt Company in Richmond closed.
Their May 15 opening came just a few months into the pandemic — as fabric was flying off the shelves of stores around the country while people scrambled to make face coverings to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
People waited in line — sometimes for hours — outside stores, including the Fabric Hut on East Little Creek Road in Norfolk and A Different Touch fabric store on South Military Highway in Chesapeake. Supplies to make face masks — elastic, shears, rotary cutters and sewing machines — were sold out. Chain stores such as JOANN Fabrics and Crafts were cleaned out as well.
Sunshine Quilt Corner had the supplies, and word spread quickly.
By August, the rush had slowed and COVID restrictions were starting to loosen, so the store hosted its first charity sewing event and invited local sewists to the store to make cage covers for shy cats and kittens at The Cat Corner in Hampton.
In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, volunteers sewed more than 100 mastectomy pillows for Virginia Oncology Associates in Port Warwick. The pillows fit under the arms and over the chest to protect the incision site.
Other projects have included hearts made for mothers with babies in the NICU and lap blan
kets for nursing home residents.
Most recently, five women teamed up to make 62 pillows out of scrap material to donate to the Peninsula Regional Animal Shelter. The shelter used the pet beds for cats and said it planned to send the pillows home with the animals when they’re adopted to help alleviate stress as they adjust to new homes.
Sunshine Quilt Corner provides most of the materials and patterns for the monthly project, but community members often offer to donate to help with the projects, Newton said.
“It’s just part of our way of giving back and giving the ladies that really want to participate something to do,” Newton said.
She watches awareness months for the charity sew project ideas and takes suggestions. Next, the sewers will make dresses to send to Africa.
Last summer, the store offered a camp teaching children to quilt.
The shop also hosts classes teaching quilting and other projects such as bags, table runners and wall hangings. They host sew days, which give people an opportunity to finish the personal projects they’re working on in a social environment.
Newton says she’s seen “a revival of the craft” as young men and women have started enrolling in the classes to learn to sew and quilt.
“We’re working on bringing younger generations in,” Newton said. “Some of them use it as a social gathering with a purpose.”