DETROIT LAKES, Minn. – Roxie Jahn said that when she sits and sews, her granddaughter is with her.
Jahn’s granddaughter, Adley, died in November 2007 when she was just 11 days old. The 59-year-old Detroit Lakes woman now makes baby blankets in memory of her granddaughter under the name ADLEY by gamma roxie.
She sells some blankets at her daughter’s Grand Forks store, Adley Anne’s Baby & Maternity Boutique. But she also makes 18-by-18-inch “snuggle blankets” she donates to babies in the neonatal intensive care units at local hospitals.
“This means so much to me to be able to give to those families something soft and cuddly to show that people love and care about them during their hard times,” Jahn said. “We’ve been a part of that story. Hopefully their stories will have a happy ending.”
Jahn estimates she’s donated about 100 snuggle blankets over the years to babies in Fargo and Grand Forks. She’s also donated about 10 larger blankets for fundraisers.
“It keeps me busy, and I love it,” she said. “It just makes me feel so good because I know when we lost our baby, Adley, everybody was so good to us, and I just want all those little babies to have a little snuggle from us.”
Jahn, who has six grandchildren, started making the blankets in 2010 after another granddaughter was born.
“I used to sew, but hadn’t sewn in 30 years,” she said.
She used a soft Minky fabric, which she said is like velvet, for the blanket, and surrounded it in satin ribbons for the baby to play with.
“Everybody just loves them,” Jahn said. “The mothers I’ve heard from say the babies become attached to them; they just snuggle them.”
It means a lot to her to be able to make and donate the blankets, Jahn said.
“When I sit and sew, my little granddaughter’s with me on each blanket,” she said. “It just means so much that she’s a part of this, that we’re giving to another family. I feel rewarded.”
It typically takes 30 to 45 minutes for Jahn to make a snuggle blanket, she said. Sometimes her 12-year-old granddaughter, Devyn, helps her make the ribbons. And Jahn said she enlisted a friend to help make some of the 46 blankets she donated before Christmas.
“We’re thinking about our Adley and paying it forward,” she said.
Online: www.facebook .com/ADLEYbygammaroxie
Her Voice is a weekly article about women in or from our area and how they make an impact on the world around them. If you know someone SheSays should feature in HerVoice, email Tracy Frank at tfrank@forumcomm.com .
