Can you help sew caps for kids?

Thirroul volunteer Tessa McMaugh has just finished hand-sewing 70 caps for children with cochlear implants for the charity NextSense. Each one takes about an hour to make.

It’s fiddly, painstaking work that requires skilful sewing to combine soft netting and cotton material, and produce neat curved seams.

She’d love some help.

“I’m used to being busy,” says Tessa, a retired teacher. “But it’s just too much for one person.”

NextSense needs two or three batches of 70 caps a year, with most going to children in Western Sydney. Tess volunteers locally in many ways, including at the Seaside Festival art show, and got involved with NextSense four years ago thanks to her daughter, an occupational therapist.

“They used to be called the Royal Blind and Deaf Society, but they’re now called NextSense,” Tessa says.

Her caps are used after children have cochlear implants.

“It’s such a huge thing to go through," Tessa says. "The cochlear implants get put in and then these caps sit around like a helmet, to keep the cochlear in, so the kids can’t take them out or they can’t fall out.”

Originally from Zimbabwe, Tessa met her Australian husband when he was teaching there and the couple moved to the Illawarra 40 years ago. “I do a huge amount of craft. I do a lot of sculpture and stained glass. And so I’m good with my hands,” she says.

This is essential as caps are a demanding job for volunteers. “They need to be a good seamstress. They can’t be a beginner – that’s the problem.”

The cap pictured is made of leftover material from a project Tessa did for her granddaughter (“she’s into astronomy”).

“They want cotton so it doesn’t irritate the skin of the child,” she says.

The charity covers the fabric cost and Tessa is happy to share patterns and explain what’s needed.

Contact tessamcmaugh@gmail.com or 0438 674 370.