Dalene Culliford has been knitting and crocheting ever since she can remember.
So when her family, friends and her own home had been completely decked out with her woolly masterpieces, she decided to put her talents towards a good cause and make fiddle mats for the delirium and dementia patients at Monash Health.
“My mum taught me to knit, and my grandma taught me to crochet,” she said.
“I just love doing handcrafts, and the fiddle mats are special because they are proven to help delirium and dementia patients.”
Volunteering with Monash Health for over 30 years, Dalene was the first to be approached early this year to help bring the new fiddle mat initiative to life.
“At first I had no idea how to make them, so I looked it up on the internet and then came up with some ideas myself, so it was a bit of experimenting at first,” she said.Volunteer Dalene Culliford loves using her skillset to improve the lives of others.Fiddle mats are mats with objects sewn onto their surface that patients can use for sensory and tactile stimulation.
Our delirium and dementia patients often have restless hands, which can bring on feelings of agitation – so our fiddle mats make a great distraction tool to prevent our patients from reaching out to objects that may harm them.
So far, Dalene has made 28 fiddle mats and uses a variety of fiddly objects such as ribbons, zippers, shoelaces, buttons, old buckles, organza bags with cellophane squished inside and more.
“A row of crotchet takes me about five minutes, and then multiply that by 48 for one mat, and that’s just for the background,” she said.
“The tricky part is sewing things to it and making sure they’re secure.”
While Dalene said crocheting the mats in her spare time helps “keep her out of mischief”, our new volunteer Carmel Krohn said doing crafts brings her a lot of joy.
“I love doing crafts, but I never knew what to do with all of it, so when I found out Monash Health needed fiddle mats I was really happy to do it because I knew it was going to a good cause,” she said.
“When I know it’s going to people in need, I always put in 100 per cent.”As long as Monash Health needs fiddle mats, Volunteer Carmel Krohn is more than happy to make them.Carmel sews her fiddle mats together by mixing and matching different pieces of fabric.
“When I’m making one, I like to visualise who it might be going too and what they might like,” she said.
“I even knit little pieces separately to stitch on as fiddle objects.”
Volunteer Coordinator Vicky Vasilopoulos said since the initiative began, our volunteers have produced over 120 fiddle mats.
“We’ve received such positive feedback from our patients and clinicians,” she said.
“It started for the Kingston Centre, but we now have so many different sites and teams reaching out for fiddle mats that it’s difficult to keep up with the demand!”That’s why the fiddle mat volunteer team is on the hunt for some fresh faces interested in helping make something for a good cause.
“Whether you can crochet, knit, or sew, we would love anyone with any type of related skills who is interested to reach out to us,” Vicky said.
If crafting isn’t your forte, Vicky also said the team needed haberdashery donations to help with the production of the fiddle mats, including any material, wool, buttons, beads (no smaller than a 20-cent piece), zips, ribbons, buckles or even little soft toys.
“I can’t thank our existing volunteers Dalene, Carmel, Elspeth, Bev and Elaine enough for going out of their way to make a difference,” she said.
If you are interested in volunteering to make fiddle mats, or to donate any materials, please contact Vicky at vicky.vasilopoulos@monashhealth.org.
