Honoring Emmaline

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Hello Farmgirl Friends,

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This is the time of year that most of my left over energy goes to our cut flower garden business and keeping up with all the other outdoor work that I enjoy so much.  Usually my sewing and quilting gets put (somewhat) on the back burner.  

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But this summer I’ve jumped neck deep into a project that is very different, very emotional, and even hard to talk about but yet so fulfilling that I’m eager to share it.  So I will go back about six months and share with you from there. 

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In November, with only a few weeks to term, my son and daughter in law lost their baby girl to stillbirth.  She was a healthy, perfectly formed and beautiful baby weighing 6 pounds.  She was named Emmaline Lowell Troutman.   Such a beautiful name for such a precious baby.

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This is a heartbreak that is unlike any we’ve experienced as a family and after reading and researching to help myself so that I could be a help to my son and daughter in law and their darling 3 year old, Eleanor,  I realized there is a very large silent number of us that have been through this.   It’s something that is hard to talk about and so many suffer in silence.   (To be respectful of the pain, emotions and healing that my son and his little family are feeling I am purposely not sharing their part of the journey.  Suffice it to say, it is incredibly hard.)

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As for myself, I seem to have this hole in my heart that just aches continually.   Of course each day brings joy and so many things to be thankful for; I have always been the person that sees the light in the darkness, but this has felt different for me.   I cry really easily and I find myself feeling deeply sad inside.  

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Fast forward to a few weeks ago my daughter in law shared with me the information of an amazing foundation called Star Legacy Foundation.  Their website says it perfectly: “Honoring Babies, Supporting Families”.   My daughter in law said the foundation had posted that they were in need of swaddling blankets for stillborn babies and she said “I think you should consider doing this”.  That was all it took for me to be ALL IN.   

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I contacted the foundation and I love the support they offer to families that have lost a baby (or an infant). One of the special things they do is collect swaddling blankets and distribute them to hospitals that need them. I was reassured that families love the home-sewn swaddling blankets as they are very personal. I got started immediately. I have a lot of fabric; we quilters love to collect it!   So I very quickly made a few precious little swaddling blankets to mail, but realized deep in my heart this is something I wanted to do in a big way.   Something that needed to be very deeply significant for me.

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I have been incredibly fortunate the last 7 years to be an Ambassador for Poppie Cotton, a fabric manufacturer of absolutely the softest and highest quality cotton quilting fabrics.  The two women that founded the company have been amazing to me all these years; not just sending me their new collections of fabric to sew and design with but eagerly sending me anything extra I ask for.  When the swaddling blanket project became a bit of an obsession to me, I sent a text to one of the partners of the company asking if they would be willing to help by sending me fabric, lots of fabric!  I immediately got this response:  “Dori, thank you for asking us to be a part of something so special.  I am going to talk to the warehouse and ask them to put together a box to send you.”

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A week later I received a box from the Poppie Cotton warehouse (with a beautiful card from the warehouse girls) that was packed full of yardage of 30 different prints of fabric.  I couldn’t hold back the tears when I opened the box.  I’ve had the privilege of sewing for Poppie Cotton almost since the beginning of their business and every one of these fabrics I have sewn with in the past.

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I have designed with them, handled them, loved them… and now I get to honor babies by turning this fabric into the most gorgeous soft swaddling blankets that hopefully will comfort families as they hold and cherish the final memory of their baby. 

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One of the things I have always loved about Poppie Cotton fabric is that many of them are designed with sweet words in the selvedge of the fabric. When cutting out a project, I have always carefully cut those out and put in a huge canister jar in my sewing room and I use them in projects. I realized how some of the words and phrases are so applicable to these precious blankets and I have loved sorting through my collection to add one to each blanket.

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I also had tags made to attach, so the recipients would know these swaddling blankets were made for them because our family also suffered a great loss.

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It is a gut wrenching thing to think about as I’ve been sewing, and I’ll be honest here.  I sobbed the first 10 or so blankets I made; some of them so tiny it is hard to comprehend. 

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But now, I feel like I’m crying for my own hurt a little less, I’m thinking of others more, I’m cherishing the very simple way that I can honor my grandbaby… my precious Emmaline.  I think she would be happy to know she has a Grammie that by honoring her, I am honoring other babies whose breath was also cut short.  

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I am so very thankful for this project, thankful for the privilege of doing something to help other grieving families, thankful that with each blanket I make, little Emmaline is foremost in my mind and in my heart. I am especially thankful that the hole in my heart is healing… filling with a love that is so great, it is hard to express it.

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Thank you sweet friends, for always being here for me! In the ten years I have been writing for MaryJanesFarm here on the Farmgirl blog, I’ve valued your friendship to me so much!

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Until our gravel roads cross again… so long.

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Dori

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If any of you are interested in donating a swaddle blanket or two, I am eager to share some information with you. Due to the fragile state of the skin of a stillborn baby, very soft fabric is imperative. The blankets can be made in any way; I chose to double my fabric so there was no exposed seams. I also used some VERY soft baby ric-rac to add a little something extra. But this is also not a requirement. The sizes that the foundation uses the most are 12 x 12 inches and up to 36 x 36 inches. You can mail them to: