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Healing Blankets For Tech Families

May 22, 2007

By Bill Lohmann

Debbie Robertson put the finishing touches on a square of yarn she was crocheting and added it to the stack of maroon and orange squares.

Hokie colors.

"I've probably done 30 or more," said Robertson. "It really makes you feel you're able to contribute in some way."

Robertson is among the Richmonders stitching squares to be sent to a Blacksburg yarn shop that came up with the idea of making blankets for the families of the 32 victims of the Virginia Tech massacre.

Calling the project "Hokie Healing," Mosaic Yarn in Blacksburg put out the call for 8-by-8-inch squares a few days after the shootings. They need more than 2,000 squares—knitted or crocheted—to make 32 blankets. They'd like to get enough squares to make blankets for those who were wounded, as well, said Belinda Ierardi, a Mosaic employee keeping track of the incoming squares.

So far, Mosaic has received about 500 squares from 29 states, as well as Australia, Greece and Taiwan, Ierardi said. The deadline for receiving the squares is May 31, so Ierardi is hoping many more squares will arrive in the coming week.

"The more we get, the merrier," she said. "They will go to good homes."

For Robertson and her fellow stitchers at From the Heart, the Tech blanket project was a perfect fit.

From the Heart is a volunteer organization whose members make hand-stitched items for those in need of a little hope, joy or comfort.

"When we get something like this, everybody wants to jump in and help," said Lois Moore, founder of From the Heart, which was born in a Richmond coffee shop by a small group of women who met there regularly to knit.

Moore said yesterday From the Heart stitchers have made about 175 squares so far.

Robertson, Eleanor Cannon and Pat Allen stitched Hokie squares as they sat around a table at From the Heart's shop on Westbriar Drive off Patterson Avenue.

"Everybody has a connection to Virginia Tech," said Allen, whose father, husband, son and daughter-in-law are Tech alumni.

"My husband can't talk about this without crying," said Robertson, whose husband went to Tech, as did her daughter, father, father-in-law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law. "It's had the impact of 9/11 across the country and around the world."

Richmond-area knitting shops, such as The Knitting Basket and Unraveled, have put out the call for squares, too.

"The response from our knitters has been very positive," said Ute Grzanna, co-owner of The Knitting Basket on Grove Avenue, where about 40 squares have been collected. "They see this as a wonderful opportunity to share their knitting with a worthy cause. Many have direct ties to Virginia Tech. Other knitters have no direct ties, other than an interest in sharing their feeling with the families."

"Once you are part of the Tech community, you are always part of that community," said Mary Jane Watkins, owner of Unraveled, in Gayton Crossing Shopping Center. Her son received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Tech. "I know that for me, knitting the squares is helping with the healing process."

One Richmond couple, Brian and Donna Henley, both knit and have made several squares. They attended Tech in the early 1990s.

"When tragedies strike so close to home, everyone wants to help but doesn't always have the time or resources to really do anything," Donna Henley said. "Knitting these squares is such a wonderful way for us to contribute in the healing process."

Once the squares arrive in Blacksburg, the staff at Mosaic and volunteers will sew them into blankets, Ierardi said.

"That will be quite the undertaking," she said with a laugh. "But we're up to the challenge."

The squares delivered so far have been "just beautiful," Ierardi said.

"We're getting the most unusual and different patterns," she said. "Ones with little Hokie bird faces on them; one person did the state of Virginia. They're so unique. It will really show people how [the squares] have come from so many parts of the country."

Contact staff writer Bill Lohmann at wlohmann@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6639.