The Alice Caroline team have been busy making Liberty scrubs and bags for the NHS. We are all trying to help out as much as we can in a huge community effort against a terrible situation. If there is one thing this has taught us here, it’s that sewing is really important in the lives of many people.
I asked Anna about making scrubs. “One of my neighbours works at my daughter’s school who had been very active in making visors for the NHS. She knew that I worked at Alice Caroline so asked if I had any spare elastic. As it happened, I had a giant reel of it so happily donated this to the cause. She then asked me if I wanted to make scrubs and if I knew of any fabric that would be available? It made me chuckle as we do have rather a lot of fabric in the Alice Caroline studio. Alice was really happy to donate many metres of fabric to the scrubs cause as well as the bags they need to be stored and washed in. So, I set about making my very first set of scrubs! Apart from the tiresome overlocking of every piece, it was a really fun process. It felt really good to be making something for someone else who needs it more than I. It made me think of our Quilt SOS project, where lovely people make gorgeous quilts for us to donate to vulnerable women and children (this also promoted me to start making a quilt for the project with my daughter during lockdown which has been really fun).”
“It turns out that scrub making is quite easy. Even if you haven’t done any dressmaking at all, I think anyone with a sewing machine could make them. I’ve been part of a group called Cotswold Scrubs and a WhatsApp group called the Scrubbers! I am astounded by the camaraderie in this group and by the sheer output of many of the people sewing. Some people have been made 60 sets! I’ve had more to do with my community, all be it via technology, than I’ve had in the last 5 years of living in my house. My sister is a nurse working on Covid19 wards and so it felt really good to be giving something back to help people like her. I hope the scrubs I am making are put to good use.”
Lara and Pauline have made many bags for the NHS, again using fabric donated by Alice Caroline. These have been really useful for storing scrubs and uniforms as well as being used to wash NHS kit in. Thank you so much Lara and Pauline. Your efforts have been brilliant.
As an aside to sewing for the NHS, we have also seen a huge upturn in people wanting to sew whilst in lockdown. We have been inundated with fabric orders and have re-opened our Quilt BOM so that more people in lockdown could join (it’s open until the 9th June 2020). It’s been quite an honour to have been part of this revival of crafting and sewing.
