Monday Report on Ukrainian Efforts

Aren’t these fleece blankets adorable? I’ve not seen such cute prints here in Poland on fleece. Adding the blanket stitch is just the perfect touch!

I suppose before I review what I did for Ukrainians this past week, it would be the right thing to just finish showing you what I did the next day with the things that came in the boxes.

The pillowcases all went into two boxes - just to keep them together.

The quilts - I started the process of matching a quilt, a pillowcase, a blanket and putting it all in a vinyl case with a pillow. First I put the quilt out on the table or floor, then pulled pillowcases that coordinated (at least sorta) - and then as I was putting the fleece blanket in the case with the pillow/case, I measured it all and put it in the vinyl bag.

There were some beautiful quilts in this bunch - here are several beauties in the colors I’m naturally drawn to. That’s not say that others weren’t beautiful - part of these are because their boxes were convenient to get to to photograph! LOL

Oh, and only the first one actually h ad that pillowcase with it.

I did make up all 28 of the non-baby quilts that we received. I’m saving the specifically baby quilts because I’m going to make a special kit for them - as much as I can anyway - as I won’t put a pillow in with those. Instead I’m thinking about a couple of receiving blankets and a package of wipes.

Then, we’ve spent a fair bit of time back and forth with the Fed Ex people having to do with customs. We’re doing our best to get everything you’ve sent. Even if it an unseen thing - it takes quite a bit of time to take care of it. It’s far more exciting and makes better pictures to go shopping! :) How do you properly take a photo of someone working on this kind of thing?

What else happened this week?

This week was different since Monday was still considered the Easter holiday. On Monday my husband Tim did go install some blinds for Lena, a refugee who is currently living here. Nothing else was open as it was a holiday and all stores were closed.

Our guest, Tim, decided to move his ticket up and leave on Tues. evening instead of Thurs. so we had to do some more shopping for him to take back home with him PLUS things for the medics (the stuff in the garage) on Tuesday. We spent several hours doing that, actually.

It is this collection of food and goodies that I added the duvets and covers to on Thursday. In this case, they are coming to us to pick it up. Hopefully soon.

Then, Wed. morning a second guest we had left. At that point, I started doing laundry, laundry and other things. It’d been a while since we had no company.

I did manage to make up a few more pillowcases and started quilting the next 10 charity quilts - I’m currently working on #41-50 for 2022.

 

On Thursday we received those boxes which pretty much consumed the day (plus paperwork) - and then on Friday I made up the quilt bags shown above.

I learned a couple of things.

  1. I need to be organized once I have people helping me. I need to clear out some areas - whether we work here or at church - and create a good working environment.

2. I need some more plain white pillows. Why? Well, many of the pillows I’ve been buying actually have a sort of design on the pillow. See photo above left.

They work fine with a medium or dark pillowcase as shown - but not as well with lighter pillowcases. I ordered some today. But I need to keep ordering them as I don’t want to order more than about 20 at a time from one company. (I’m using multiple companies.) It creates too big of a box and they don’t like delivering that many at once. (At least they aren’t heavy!)

I did get called to come and pickup some more shirts from the Jozefow Station by a volunteer who works there and knows I make quilts from second-hand things - where a lot of ladies and children are and they are getting donations of clothing. I did go get a bag of them. I spent some time sorting them and started to cut them up. That was like a balm for my “need to do some sewing” soul. :)

I also picked up quite a few containers of this fruit puree for children and then took it a bit later on the same day (Friday) to the place who is using it. One of the ladies who is in charge told me I had a “good sense” because she had just opened the last package which was the stuff I had taken in about Wed. of last week. :)

I just opened the back of the van and the people who live there (Ukrainians) helped take them all in. They were eager to help. Here’s one young lady who speaks a bit of English!

She doesn’t know it yet, but if she is still there, I have this young lady pegged to help me. :) She speaks some English and just seems like a ‘helper’.

Please note the #QuiltsforUkraine effort will be closing down at the end of April. Please get them in the mail soon to Rachael at Quilted Twins so can have them by then. She wants to end donations on April 30 - so they can go ahead and get the quilts on their way to Poland and we can get them moved on to Ukraine. It will take a while to get them all here and get them taken to Ukraine.

My husband was able to get the final documents on the new-to-us trailer and still needs to go get it inspected again. He’d probably already have that done, but with his back and leg hurting him, he is not doing all that much physically right now. Hopefully the doctor, on Monday, can give him some advice and a direction to go to get some relief.

And that was it for my week as regards to Ukraine and refugee support/stuff. In the photos it doesn’t seem like much but in real life - it was a lot of time, anyway. :)

The day you are reading this (Monday) we are scheduled to get 4 boxes!

Thanks again for coming along on this journey with me!

Becky Petersen7 Comments