My sister is in charge of the humanitarian projects for our ward. The main project is the "angel dolls". These are dolls made of muslin that just have the arms, legs, torso, and head. At the children's hospital patients are given these and the doctor uses a doll to explain the procedure that the child will be undergoing. The patients can decorate the doll to look like them, and they are also allowed to choose a robe, which we also sew.
Each ward gets a bolt of muslin that should be enough for ninety dolls. (It's about three dolls per yard.) The wards buy the flannel for the robes (about six per yard) and the stuffing. There are patterns for the dolls and robes.
Dolls need to be cut out, sewn, turned inside out, stuffed, and then have the gap that was left for the stuffing sewn up. The robes need to be cut and bordered, as well as sewing some parts together, which is done with a "serger" (overlock sewing machine).
We have done this three times now. The first time we got it in the middle, and most of the work was done at girls' camp.
Last year there was a relief society meeting where we worked on them. That went pretty well, but one thing we saw is that starting from scratch, it takes a while for the people on the sewing machines and sergers to have anything to do. We don't have either, so that is our most valuable resource.
This year we decided to do some pre-cutting so the machines could get started right away. We had about thirty cut out of each.
This helped a lot. All of the pattern tracing and cutting - dolls and robes - were done by the end of the evening. (There were three dolls where someone decided to sew around the pattern before cutting, so those three still need to be cut out.) All of dolls were sewn, and many were stuffed.
There were two issues, both of which probably had the same solution.
Only about a third of the gowns were done. There was another third that just had a border on the sleeves, but were not sewn together at all. Someone was doing it wrong. I am positive she did not know she was doing it wrong, but no one caught it.
The other is that we are short seven dolls. We got the muslin in two sections, which we were told meant there was extra, but we never actually measured the yardage. Perhaps some was missing. However, I think people may have been cutting a little wastefully. The dolls that were sewn while still in squares were definitely wasteful. To get three to a yard the arms need to overlap a little - not much, but it matters.
For both of these, I think the answer was more supervision. That is hard, because while my sisters can be very forceful in some ways, telling people how to do a craft thing, especially people who are volunteering, is not something they can do. They just worked without checking on others' work, and there were some downsides.
These are some of the issues that can come up when you are working with people. Instructing before can save the need to correct later, and it depends on personalities, but I believe it can go better. I didn't think it would all get done in a single night, and it was still a good start, but there are some areas to improve.
Frankly, one is on us, because I should have been there. I did most of the pre-cutting, so I had already put in a lot of work, but the reason I didn't go that night is because we had been fighting and I was sick of them. That's something we could work on.
Maybe next year.
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