In The Spotlight With The SAS - St. Andrew’s Stitchers



Welcome to BST's In The Spotlight, can you introduce yourself to our customers? Hi, I’m Jan, one of the founder members of the SAS, (St. Andrew’s Stitchers). The other being my best friend June, a brilliant quilter. We are a community group of older ladies based at the Church of the same name in Washington. We came together in 2016 to learn how to make quilts, socialise and enjoy our retirement.



You are one of the people behind St. Andrew’s Stitchers who support Quilts For Comfort, can you tell us more about SAS and Quilts For Comfort? Quilts for Comfort was formed after the sad death of the son of a great friend of mine and June’s. Sandra’s 18-year-old son was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2012 and June being June made him a quilt to take into the RVI with him. David loved this idea of giving comfort to someone through a quilt and chose to donate it to the RVI to pass on comfort to another patient. He felt that everyone going through what he was going through would find comfort in a quilt and thus Quilts for Comfort began. David chose the name and his mother began to organise quilt making. Sadly, David passed away peacefully at home on April 4th 2014.



What was your inspiration for setting up SAS, what made you want to startup and help people the way you do? For the next few years, Quilts for Comfort became a source of comfort for Sandra and as a quilter herself with many quilting friends they made and delivered so many Quilts to the RVI. As someone who had no idea how to quilt myself and because many friends had asked how they could help, June and I thought it would be a good idea to form a group at her church for ‘wannabe’ quilters, thus the SAS was born. The ladies like me who couldn’t quilt were supported by June and other ladies from other quilt groups who could teach us. Eventually, in 2019 the QFC administration was taken on by the SAS to allow Sandra to have some quality time with her family.



What you do is amazing, do you ever get to see the patients with the quilts? If so, how does it make you feel knowing you have helped them in some way? Although we rarely find out who the recipients of the quilts are we know they go to babies, children and young adults on the Oncology ward and the Bone Marrow transplant ward at the RVI. Sometimes siblings of the patients will be given quilts too for their comfort. We have even provided money to help with family finances whilst they are going through the worst time of their lives. Once we provided money to allow a patient to visit London as part of a wish list. We are a non-profit making group, so any donation gets ploughed right back into the ‘Comfort.’ We have had thankyou messages and cards from families and a couple of visits to our church group by survivors of the tumours. BBC radio contacted us in February 2020 about a post seen on FB of a mother who was looking for the person who made a quilt her son was given when he was RVI undergoing treatment for a brain tumour which he survived. June went to the studio to take part in a link up with the mother on the late Lisa Shaw’s radio show so she could give her thanks. These thankyous make it all worthwhile and gives us a wonderful sense of achievement.



Can anyone get involved with St. Andrew’s Stitchers and if so how or maybe donate their Quilts? A few local quilting groups often send us some quilts to pass on to the RVI. We have a group from Cumbria who do this every few months and we have met up with the representative from the group once just to get to know her. We often get donations of fabric from individuals who have spares or sadly have passed away and their families donate us their ‘stash’ and some suppliers will give us a small discount if the fabrics we buy are for the charity. Sandra has also received quilts and monetary donations from friends and passed them on to SAS. Due to covid, for one reason or another we have had a reduction in our number of members, although some ladies are still sewing at home and sending their quilts to us. Covid has also meant that for health and safety protocols we have to limit the number of participants in the group for now, sadly, but at least we have manged to restart the group again with our allowed number of participants.



How often do you all meet up and what can new members expect from a typical meet-up? We meet up every Wednesday from 10 am till 12 noon and apart from sewing and sharing skills we have a good old natter and enjoy each other’s company. The vicar would often pop in pre lockdown and we have a lady church member who comes along just to take our £2 fee and makes our tea and coffee, as she wanted to help out (the fee pays for the hall rent and our tea, coffee and biscuits) All materials used are paid for from any funds we receive and most of us just buy our own fabrics and donate them.



Do you make anything else or is it just quilts? A lot of ladies now have the confidence to make things for the church fairs, Christmas items and gifts and home furnishings for themselves too. During lockdown I made loads of soft toys and bags to give to family and friends.



You recently received a grant from Gentoo, how important was that funding, and what did it go towards? The Gentoo grant we received in early 2020 was used to buy 2 full rolls of wadding and as we discovered BST then too, we got some great fun fleece to back our quilts with, which our ladies love to use. As we are a local community group we can apply annually for a grant. I applied for another Gentoo grant last month (August) to purchase 2 sewing machines to leave onsite for members use, as we are all finding carrying our own equipment to the group harder as we get older. We are just waiting to see if we are successful. The church has provided us with a cupboard for our own use to safely store our items in.



If someone reading this would like to help with any kind of funding or donation how can they get in touch? I can be contacted by email at jwaggott51@hotmail.com



What does the future hold for SAS? We hope to continue as a group for the foreseeable future and remain friends forever. Our goal has always been to make the quilts to donate to the RVI as it not only gives patients comfort but gives us comfort too.



Do you have a website or social media channel where people can follow you and find out more? We did have both website and FB page, but they are seldom used now.



You buy some of your items from BST, but how did you find out about BST? Personally, I found out about BST by word of mouth from one of my fellow quilters at another church quilting group I began to attend at High Usworth. They also donate quilts to SAS occasionally. I discovered that every one of their members and every one of our members has bought fabric and supplies from BST many times and all had nothing but praise for BST and the extensive range of quality sewing materials. As I am not a driver and have not yet drummed up the courage to resume public transport, I looked online to see if you had a website and of course I discovered you did. It was great to have the means to access a local supplier for my needs and the needs of our group.



Is there anything you would like to add? Many thanks to BST for being there and one day I will come to you to see for myself what I have been missing.