Lakewood Ranch Women's Club has it covered by making blankets

Lakewood Ranch's Ann Sledz knows she puts a personal stamp on each blanket she crochets.

She also knows when she is finished with each project, that blanket is going out the door no matter how much she loves it.

Sledz is one of about 15 members of the Blankets 4 Babies committee of the Lakewood Ranch Women's Club. Since the spring of 2017, the group has donated about 150 blankets to charitable organizations such as the Children's Guardian Fund and SOLVE Maternity Homes.

"Some projects, yes, you become a little more attached to," said Sledz, who started crocheting as a hobby about 16 years ago when she was about to become a grandmother. "You are giving a part of yourself to these little babies. I like doing projects where I can see a result, and babies are my weak point."

On Jan. 8, the committee donated another 24 handmade quilts and crocheted blankets to the Children's Guardian Fund, which responds to the needs of children who have been removed from abusive and neglectful homes. Those children often are forced to move on short notice without their personal belongings.

Peggy Kerwin, the executive director of the SOLVE Maternity Home, a Christ-centered maternity home which serves the needs of at-risk pregnant women and their babies, said the babies and mothers they serve don't typically have mothers, grandmothers or aunts who prepare and pass down sentimental tokens of love such as blankets.

She said Blankets 4 Babies serves that very important need.

"I knew there was a need for this," said committee chair and founder Diane Laybourn. "These kids are never going to have the life most of us have. They are behind the 8-Ball from the start.

"I remember I always had a blanket I carried around."

Eileen Buzzard, who joined the committee even though she has yet to finish a blanket, said Blankets 4 Babies is an example the 336-member Lakewood Ranch Women's Club can make an important contribution to the community.

"Twice a year, we have a new member brunch," Buzzard said. "At the brunch (spring of 2017), Diane (Laybourn) was a new member. We go around and all the new members talk. Diane said she used to make blankets for babies at a hospital."

The committee formed and the blanket production began.

"Twenty years ago, I used to crochet blankets for the homeless," said Miriam Echevarria. "I hadn't done it a long time, then I learned about this group. I love it because I am doing something to give to someone who needs it. And I find this group of women to be very genuine, very polite and nice. One a month we all bring our projects to Lakewood Ranch Town Hall. The competition is with ourselves, but we ask (the other members) what we can do to make it better."

Pam Szabo started sewing when she was 14, but she had let her hobby lapse over the years until she saw the new committee forming.

"I decided to pick up my hobby again," she said. "I like working with the fabric and picking out the designs. I know a baby would like something soothing. Now I seem to be turning out a quilt every week or two. Now I am addicted to quilting videos."

Like Szabo, Linda Stone found the new committee was a good chance for her to become more involved in her love of creating designs and patterns. "Forty years ago, I sold children's clothes," she said. "It's much more enjoyable to donate them."

Stone thought about her statement a moment. "Well, I did like selling them," she said with a laugh.

"I do like giving them away, because I get to do another one," she said.

The ladies all said it costs about $40 to buy the materials for one blanket. A price simply can't be placed on the hours of labor, but that's OK because they all enjoy it.

Buzzard is trying to enjoy the process just a little more.

"I am not a prolific producer of blankets," she said with a smile. "But I am bound and determined to make one blanket."

The other members of the committee don't mind even if she never makes one.

They noted Buzzard always brings a box of chocolates to their meetings.

Anyone who would be interested in joining the Lakewood Ranch Women's Club can go to the website at lwrwc.org or can attend a meeting every second Tuesday of the month at 1-4 p.m.