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Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Alzheimers fidget quilt

Our WNY MQG is honored this month to be making Fidget quilts for Alzheimer patients  Our current president in real life is on the nursing staff of a local hospital and brought this need to our attention.   Since we are always looking for items to make for charity we are excited to do a full day sew-in this coming weekend at the hospitals community center.  



The idea of this quilt is to be lap size for someone sitting in a wheel chair, I decided on 16 x 20 for mine, a little bigger than a place mat.

Since I have a lot of stuff to bring as it is, I decided to do myself an example so I don't have to make it up as I go along on sewing day.  I mapped out the sizes of each square, noted how may "extras" I need and printed an outline. 

On the quilt my goal was to incorporate at least 3 fabrics of different textures and 6 items to fidget with.  When using the quilt patients "worry" or fidget with the shapes, textures and items. 


On this one I used flannel, denim, netting and soft cottons, some with extra batting with textured quilting. My items are buttons, a zipper, snaps, marbles under the cotton netting, cording, a key chain and a belt with loops. This was my manly man quilt for gentleman patients who don't want frills.

My favorite Wednesday link Sew Fresh Quilts

off to sew,
Pam 

8 comments:

  1. What a wonderful idea. I used to work in a nursing home and I watched residents "worry" the edges of blankets and clothing. Something like this would have been very helpful. Great job!!

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  2. What a thoughtful and lovely thing that your guild is working on! This looks like it would be fun to fidget with. :)

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  3. Pam this is really wonderful and will be so good for an Alzheimer's patient to be able to fidget with . You included some very well thought out things and I like that it is manly.

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  4. This is such a wonderful idea and great project.

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  5. Pam, you are one of the most generous people I've ever met (well, I know we haven't actually met, but I feel like we have!). You have a beautiful soul, and the world is, without a doubt, a better place with you in it.

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  6. These quilts are a great idea and yours looks like it will be very helpful to a gentleman patient. My Dad had Alzheimer's and had a fiddle quilt which he really liked. This is a good thing your group is doing! :)

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  7. Oh my god....My mom suffers horribly from dementia and ALL she does is sit and fidget with her clothes. I mean the buttons and zippers!! She'll stop looking at a movie and put all of her attention on the buttons of her sweater! I had no idea this was a thing! But where can I buy one of these?? Brilliant!

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  8. I have been making some Alzheimer's quilts and in my research I discovered there are two levels of them. When a person gets really bad, they are likely to tear off something like a button at some point and likely try to swallow it, so for advanced stages textures are great, but no additions on top. Check with your local nursing homes and see which quilts they want. The home I have made lap quilts for did not want any items that could conceivably be torn off.

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