Sew Generous

THey USeD To be known as Santa’s elves because of the gifts they bestowed on central Ohio children at Christmas, but now they spread cheer all winter long.

Once a month during the colder months, a group of about 30 women gathers at the Grandview Heights Public Library. Here, the Toymakers, a special interest group of The Ohio State University Women’s Club, create hundreds of stuffed toys for children. The group used to deliver toys at Christmas, Easter and the end of each sewing season, but now takes the toys in whenever there’s a large enough pile.

Toymakers has been active since 1934, making it the oldest segment of the Women’s Club, says Chairwoman Elizabeth Shaudys.

And Shaudys is one of the group’s longest-standing members – if not the longest. She joined Toymakers in 1955, the year she moved to Grandview Heights. Her husband, Edgar, is an OSU professor, so Shaudys joined the Women’s Club as a matter of course.

The group used to meet in a member’s home, with the hostess providing lunch, but in the 1980s, it moved to the library.

“It was amazing to me because (the hostess) would have to host and then provide food for everybody. It was quite an activity, but it was wonderful,” says member Barbara Bouton. “I kept wondering how many pins we lost in her carpet.”

Bouton, a Perry Township resident, joined in 1987 when she moved from Philadelphia. She had been very active in a women’s club there, so she quickly became part of nearly all the interest groups the University Women’s Club had to offer. “The only thing I don’t do is play bridge,” Bouton says.

It’s a social club with a charitable aim: provide stuffed toys to children in need of comfort. To accomplish this, the women make hand-sewn toys with drawnon faces that can go with kids into MRI machines and through CT scans.

“A lot of times when there’s an emergency, families grab

Toymakers craft handmade stuffed animals for sick children

the kids and run,” Bouton says. “(This is) something there to comfort them because they don’t understand what’s going on. … All these toys are given; they’re not loaned. Once a child has it, it’s forever.”

During the first meeting of the 20122013 sewing season, the group trickles in slowly to the meeting room in the basement of the library. Bouton sets up a Halloween-themed spread of candy and baked goods. Members bring their own lunches. Group dues pay for coffee and tea, and two “hostesses” supplement with snacks. In December, they have a cookie luncheon, and in May, they celebrate the end of another year of toy creation with a salad luncheon.

Tables pushed together across the room are stacked with colorful fabrics, including fleece and “minky” – a plush microfiber that is popular in baby blankets and children’s toys. The women “Ooh” and “Aah” over one another’s stashes of fabric, and eye the items others have worked on over the summer. Bouton shows off a blue miniature hippo she created by shrinking down one of the group’s popular patterns to half its original size.

“I thought some of the smaller children might like these,” she says.

They carry clouds of polyester filling to the table and sit, stuffing animals and dolls that have already been sewn together. Others cluster around two sewing machines in the corner, trying to figure out how to thread them. Once they do, two ladies start stitching.

Last year, members spent about 727 hours working together to make 260 toys that were donated to Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Ronald McDonald House, the Franklin County Board of Developmental Disabilities Early Childhood and Family Center, The Dahlberg Learning Center, and Oakstone Academy.

The group has toymaking jobs for all skill levels and interests, Shaudys says. Those who can’t sew can cut, stuff, paint faces or tie bows. “Some of our members knit and crochet and make toys that way,” Bouton says. The group has many patterns from which to choose.

“It’s a fun group. ... Everybody works widowed, divorced, single people. it doesn’t matter. All they need to do is be interested in helping a little kid who’s in need of some comfort.”

“It’s an informal group. That’s what makes it nice,” Shaudys says.

The group meets from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month from October through April, ex cept January.

Any member of the University Wom en’s Club is welcome for a yearly fee of $5. The UWC is an open club. An nual membership is $20. For more in formation, visit www.uwc-osu.org.

Lisa Aurand is editor of Tri-Village Magazine. Feedback welcome at laurand@cityscenemediagroup.com.