Helping to ease pain and sense of loss with quilts

Published 7:00 am Monday, June 13, 2022

LA GRANDE — A group of talented and generous Union County women are reaching out to Ukrainian refugees in England — one stitch at a time.

The women are members of the Girls Night Out and Friends Sewing Group. The group’s members have been hard at work over the past two months preparing 27 quilts for shipment to England where they will be donated to Ukrainian refugees, many of whom fled their country with little more than the clothes they were wearing. The quilts are meant to provide physical comfort for the Ukrainians and serve as a heartfelt gesture.

“We want to let them know that a lot of people are thinking of them,” said Bridgett Naylor, a Girls Night Out member.

Naylor and the other approximately one dozen members of the sewing and quilting club have taken donated quilts that were partially completed and given them the finishing work they needed. For example, some of the quilts had only one layer of fabric so a second back layer was sewn on.

Each quilt has been customized for Ukrainian families with a patch that has the yellow and blue colors of their nation’s flag in the shape of a heart.

“These are handmade gifts,” said Ellen Carr, a Girls Night Out member.

The local sewing club will be sending 27 quilts to the Corner Patch, an arts and crafts shop in the town of Eccleshall in England. The Corner Patch, owned by Janet Markwell, is donating quilts to Ukrainian refugees in England. To date, it has received 100 quilts for refugees.

England has at least 58,000 Ukrainian refugees, according to a story in the May 24 edition of the New York Times. They are among the more than 6.4 million Ukrainians who have left their country since Russia attacked Ukraine in February.

Naylor said she and other members of Girls Night Out have felt frustrated because they wanted to reach out to the refugees but really could not in a concrete manner because they are separated by such a great distance.

“This was something tangible we could actually do,” she said.

Naylor and Carr are among about 12 Girls Night Out women involved in the Ukrainian project. They are joined by Mary Brock, Lessa Adams, Joy Cleaver, Susan Le Page, Geri Hall, Cindy Jo DeLong, Teresa Smith-Dixon, Nancy Gromen, Patti Anderson and Jan McDowell.

The quilts the club is sending have an array of colors, including orange, green, red and blue. Many have varying dimensions but they have an important quality in common.

“Many are different, but they all are beautiful,’’ said Gromen, who is Naylor’s mother.

Much of the work on the quilts was done alone in the homes of the Girls Night Out members. The group, though, meets once a week in the evening to discuss their project and other topics. The meetings have given rise to their name.

The Girls Night Out quilts will later be taken across the Atlantic Ocean by Naylor and her family to the Corner Patch. Naylor is familiar with England because that is where her husband, Les, is from and she met the Corner Patch’s owner during a previous visit. Naylor’s family will bring the quilts in four suitcases. This will save money because Naylor’s family would have gone to England anyway. Naylor said it is much less expensive to pay for check-in luggage on a flight than it would be to ship the quilts from La Grande.

Naylor and the other members of the group know they will likely never meet the refugees who receive the quilts, but that does not diminish the satisfaction they are feeling knowing that they are helping brighten the lives of people who have just witnessed the horrors of war.

“Quilts bring comfort,” Naylor said. “We are hoping that these will ease their struggle.”