My Cart

Mini Cart

Snugglybug Rugs - A Charity Project by Hugs 'n Kisses

 

Our story:

I'm very proud that my daughter is now a paediatric nurse at the Royal Hobart Hospital and after watching our program over the years now brings home the requests and presents the quilts to the children. She now sees first hand the effect they have on the kids and works alongside my two nurse friends who started all of this.

At a charity stitch-in I held down here when I first arrived in Tasmania, I had two friends helping me who are not stitchers at all, but they are paediatric nurses at the Royal Hospital here in Hobart. What they saw and experienced on the day was the overwhelming impact a group of sharing, caring women had on each other and the possibilities this could lead to.

In conversation with the girls, we launched the 'Snugglybug Rug Project' as a way to provide a ‘snuggle’ quilt to each child diagnosed with either a terminal disease or a long term requiring treatment disease in Tasmania. Some of the kids she nurses there are in and out of the hospital for many years. Some have a lot of family support, others have very little. The staff there become very attached to their‘kids’ and are a major part of their treatment lives. Some have a special teddy or token of some sort, others have none. A quilt which could be taken to every appointment, treatment cycle,hospital stay to be wrapped ‘snug as a bug in a rug’ has an enormous supporting effect. The head of the unit and the head of Paediatric Oncology have been consulted on this and both also agree that it is of great significance and assistance to the children.

When a child is nominated, their favourite colours/themes will be given and a request sent out to the 'Snugglybug' MAILING LIST. We just need 9 block makers and an assembler for each quilt. The assembler's address is given to the block makers and all blocks are posted to her on completion to be put together. It is then sent to our lovely quilting volunteers for orders and quilting. Once complete it is returned to me to be 'finished' ( the border is fringed (very soft and tactile) and a label added) it is then presented to the child along with a permanent fabric pen and care instructions, etc.

The design of the quilt as pictured below allows for both a conversational print, if suitable, and plain patches for messages of support and love to be written by special doctors, carers, family members, etc. So if you would like to be an ongoing part of it (remember you only put your hand up for a block each time a request is made, so if you cannot do it at the time you don’t put your hand up for that one!)

 

Feel free also to offer your services for assembling or quilting, even one per year. Any offers of polar fleece backing, quilting thread, pens, labels or cash, etc are also gratefully accepted.

One person can only do so much but many people can do A WHOLE LOT MORE! SIGN UP HERE NOW if you wish to be a part of this project.

We have made over 100 quilts as of 2019, and have tried to keep a list of those presented. Note: due to patient privacy reasons I am not told the name of the children and as such we allocate them a name following the alphabet - hence all names following are not their real names.

 

As we have many volunteers, I will try and share the load around. Email your acceptance in and I will confirm your involvement. Do not start your block until you receive your confirmation, as we may have too many volunteers for the quilt.

Most of us have children, and if you haven’t gone through the process of watching and caring for a sick, frightened child, then we can only imagine how difficult it is both for the child and those that love them. If through a small part of your time doing something you are passionate about we can ease the pain and ‘loneliness’ of the process in any way, I am more than eager to do it.