Local crocheter Janet Weidner works each month to create two mini creations in which to dress the hospital's tiniest patients
Alexandra Schonfeld is a features writer at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since April 2022. Her work previously appeared in Newsweek. Infant Leggings
Each month, Williamson Medical Center in Franklin, Tennessee, celebrates their tiniest patients by organizing themed photoshoots for two newborns.
It’s a group effort — or “labor of love," Williamson Health’s director of marketing and communications Michele Simpson explains, which includes an OB nurse turned photographer, the hospital staff and a local crocheter who creates the adorable pint-sized outfits.
“We're just having a lot of fun with it,” Simpson tells PEOPLE of the initiative, which picked up about two-and-a-half years ago.
Because of the unpredictable nature of childbirth, the team often doesn't know how many newborns they'll have each month when they invite photographer Kristie Lloyd to make her visit. Simpson says it usually falls on the nursing staff to gauge which families might be open to having their newest members take part in the photoshoot.
For January, the team dressed newborn twins as musical icons (and January babies) Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton — complete with knitted pieces styled like the icons’ famous dos (above).
“We did not know until the day of that we had twins," Simpson recalls. “That was a super, super fun surprise.”
After the photos were shared online, crocheter Janet Weidner says she received “so many requests” from people asking if she could recreate the looks for their own little ones, though the design was “one of a kind," she shared.
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For Halloween, two babies were dressed as Barbie and Ken and come November, Weidner had whipped up a pair of turkey costumes. In February, the team celebrated American Heart Month, Go Red for Women Day and Valentine's Day with sweet pink and red outfits.
When she’s not crocheting for the monthly project, Weidner makes her own creations that she sells through her company Bizzy Bee Crochet, based on an old nickname her younger colleagues called her when she worked in the school system.
Rather than bring her business to a site like Etsy, Weidner sells her wares in local shops and a farmers market where she says she’s had run-ins with loved ones of the little recipients of her work at the hospital.
“I had a couple of people say ‘You sound so familiar, there's something about you,’ and then the one girl said to me, ‘Oh my gosh,’ she says ‘My nephew has one of your outfits,’ ” Weidner remembers.
Hearing all the positive feedback on her creations gives Weidner “goosebumps,” she says, “it's just such a heartwarming feeling.”
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