PLATTSBURGH — Plattsburgh resident Linda Harwood sought to tidy up and organize her quilter’s stash of fabric last fall.
“I have so much fabric that I may not ever find a purpose for,” she said.
“It just began to bother me. Just then it came to me. I could make quilts for people in Ukraine. The next thing that popped up for me how would I get them there?”
WRAP UKRAINE IN QUILTS
On her phone, she googled and found Wrap Ukraine with Quilts. Wrap the World in Quilts has sent more than 51,000 quilts to Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, and Romania… to earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria, and most recently, to fire victims in Lahaina, Maui.
Now there is a call for quilts for those impacted by the California wildfires. Wrap Ukraine with Quilts was co-founded by Hal and Gina Halladay, and fellow quilter Beth Hawkins.
“It’s a marvelous story how they started,” Harwood said.
“They wanted to make quilts, she and her husband. Then they started telling friends, and friends started giving them quilts. It turned out they had to get a staff and a place. By the time I Googled the place, they had already made and sent 10,000 quilts. That was a year into the war.”
TO ACTUALLY HELP
Harwood has a QR Code that she uses to ship her quilts.
“UPS agrees to send 90lbs of quilts for $20,” she said.
“As I shared this story with women at senior fitness (Senior Center), Connie Wayne quickly put $20 in my hand to cover that cost. She said, ‘It feels good to have an opportunity to actually help.’
“My sister gave me a pattern, train tracks, that goes very quickly. So my first quilt I made is a children’s pattern. Because it has such large squares, it goes together fast. These are fabrics that I had left over. I cut that out, put it together and had the top finished in 22 hours. That’s how quickly I put it together.”
DIFFERENT PATTERNS
In the three weeks Harwood was dogsitting, she made three quilts using the pattern.
“There’s one that’s a fabric that has designs all over it, lions and so forth,” she said.
“It’s a children’s pattern. That is a whole cloth quilt. All I did was quilt around the animals and the vegetation, and then I ran a running stitch through it to like gather it in together. I made that whole quilt in 48 hours including the quilting and the binding. I love keeping track of hours, because people always ask how long did it take you to do that.”
Harwood fashioned a red and black quilt from an abundance of leftover red remnants. With still more to use, she made a fourth quilt in red.
“That red rose was from one of my square dancing skirts,” she said.
“You can’t imagine how much fabric is in a square dancing skirt.”
Another quilt was made of strips left over from a quilt she made her sister.
“This piece of fabric is my mother’s pillow,” she said.
“My mother had beautiful linens. By cutting that up, it provided the sashing and the top. This is fabric I just happened to have. The back of the quilt is my mother’s curtains. When you do this, you can tell a story with the quilt for the person. So this will be the one that will have a story with it.”
Another quilt features sleeping babies, which were originally painted by an artist and printed by fabric companies.
“The other fabrics were to go with it,” she said.
“I bought it 20 years ago. Now, I’ve finally done something with it. I made a couple of baby quilts, but this was leftover.”
Harwood shared her first quilt and the Wrap Ukraine in Quilts project with fellow members of the Champlain Valley Quilters Guild of New York.
“I thought a lot of people would jump on that,” she said.
“I thought I would have 100 quilts. But everybody was busy. It was last spring that I started this and on to summer. They were very interested and very complimentary. One person, Jean Welch, she offered to quilt my first quilt for free and then she donated a bed-size quilt that she made.
“When Jean finishes your work by quilting, it brings your piece to life,” Harwood said.
“A quilt is a flat nothing, until you see it textured. She’s so wonderful at that. Tommy Sequin quilted the baby quilt for me. I expected to get it back, and I would have to put the binding on it. She even stepped and got fabric to put on the binding. That beautiful satin, which is really amazing.”
TO SHOW KINDNESS
The award-winning Plattsburgh quilter shipped 14 quilts total, 10 which she made, and four that others made.
Harwood recalls watching news reports the day Russians began the bombing Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
“With many tears, running down my cheeks,” she said.
“It pleases me to actually be doing something, even such a small step to show kindness that someone cares for them. When a quilt leaves me as a gift or sold to someone, I get to introduce them to the quilt and see their reactions to it. When these quilts leave me, I hope they each bring someone comfort.”
Quilters and donors can find out more info at: www.hellocottons.com.