Hey there and thank you for joining me for another episode of YQG In Bloom.
My name is Tracy Martens and today I have with me Cynthia Garand and these really cute
babies are called treasured stitches.
And I met her a few weeks ago at a market and these are memory.
They're memory keepsakes that I make out of clothing, people that have passed away or
baby clothes if they're memory keepsakes that you want to make from them.
Oh that's a good idea.
I never even thought of with the baby clothes.
Now what gave you this idea?
My mother passed away five years ago and I sew a lot and I was in some sewing groups
and one of the groups they had mentioned about making memory keepsakes.
So I'm like you know what, that would be really nice to have like a keepsake of something
that my mother had and I made it into a bear.
And then from that it just went on from there and I started making them for other people
and then I got all different kinds of animals.
I really like that idea because I mean we've heard of the memory quilts or the pillows
but to have something like these and we have our kitty here and I mean these are all one
of a kind.
They're all completely different.
Each one has a story too from the clothing.
Really nice.
And then we got the elephant.
These are great.
Now this has got to be a lot of work.
It is the planning and preparing of the animals trying to figure out what piece should go
where and sew them together but once that's all set up the process goes quicker after
that.
So do you have a pattern or did you come up with this yourself?
I started with a pattern and then I've tweaked it and this is the pattern of the bear that
I use to make all my memory keepsakes now.
So this one here is made out of baby clothes.
This one is also a weighted bear.
If people wanted a bear to remember their birth weight of their baby it's also got handwriting
on here.
I can do handwriting and embroider that.
All my bears come with an embroidered message on the foot.
Usually it's the person's name or whatever they want to put.
I can embroider that on the foot.
This one's weighted.
This one's 6 pounds 11 ounces which was my daughter's weight when she was born.
Oh so this is from your daughter?
The bear.
The memory bear.
This is the pattern that I made and it's a weighted bear.
I love that.
Those are really really beautiful.
This is the most common one that I make are the bears.
Usually people tend to go to the bears but I do have the other animal options as well.
How long have you been doing this for?
January will be two years.
I started making the bears but I've been sewing ever since I was a little girl.
I want to learn how to sew.
These are amazing.
Now is this a full time job?
No.
I work a full time job Monday to Friday during the day and then I come home and then I work
on this.
How do people find out about you?
I'm on Facebook.
A lot of it is through Facebook.
I do have a page.
It's treasured stitches BC.
You're searching on Facebook and Instagram as well and I do have a website.
It's treasured stitches dot square dot site.
I just wanted to pull this one up really quickly.
I love this out of a man's shirt.
Yes.
They make pillows out of their clothing.
I love the saying on this shirt.
It says this is a shirt I used to wear.
When you hold this know that I am there.
Love dad.
It's just such a nice saying and it's such a nice keepsake.
I really, really enjoy these.
Now do you do any markets?
I have done markets.
I've been to a few with my sewing items that I have and then I have a display of all my
memory keepsakes so that people know that this is available.
Oh, that's good.
Yeah.
It's always nicer to see some things in person and that way you can, you know, people like
to feel touch hold.
You wouldn't think that this bear is the size of the weight of a baby and it's like, I kind
of forgot that my baby was that heavy.
I'd have to ask what is the oddest animal that maybe somebody has asked you or have
you had anything that's weird?
I have a cow.
A cow?
Yeah.
I've made a cow.
I also have two dogs.
Okay.
One's a sitting and the other one is a standing dog.
I didn't bring those today, but I do have dogs.
Dogs and a cow.
The cow is the one that is different.
I like that.
Yeah.
That is wonderful.
For pricing, I want to say for this bad boy, this bad girl, your Bella girl, how much would
she run about?
The weighted bears, it depends on the weight, but they're around $80.
That's not bad at all.
Especially with the keepsakes and it's obviously got blanket and some of the clothing.
Yes.
Yeah.
Whatever clothing you want to use, because I can also make quilts too.
Okay.
I make the memory quilts from lap size all the way up to about a queen size, if that's
what you're looking for.
If there's sports that you were playing and you have a collection of all your-
Jerseys and-
Yeah.
And you wanted to make a keepsake quilt from that.
I used to run years ago, so every time I did a run and they give you the t-shirts, I made
myself a running quilt with all the shirts from the runs that I've done.
That's a nice idea, a nice keepsake.
Because half the time they just get thrown in the cedar chest or in your closet and you
get-
Yeah.
Forget about them.
So any kind of clothing that you want to have into a keepsake, I can pretty much do that.
These are wonderful.
Thank you.
I want to thank you so much, Cynthia, for checking out in this cruddy weather today-
Oh, no worries.
To show us these beautiful memory keepsakes.
Yes, thanks for having me.
Thank you.
And again, my name is Tracy.
I want to thank you so much for joining me for another episode of YQG in Bloom.
And make sure that you check out Cynthia on Facebook or Instagram, or hopefully catch
her out of market.
Have a good one.