Cheney's ‘Twisted Sisters' use yarn to help warm the area's needy

By BECKY THOMAS

Staff Reporter

The tables were spread with blankets of all patterns and colors. Some of the ladies in the room, the ones who spent hours making the blankets, were gathered to give them away.

Joanna Morris, a nurse at Cheney Care Center, stood to speak in the Sessions Village common room to those gathered there Oct. 8. She held up a striped crocheted blanket to show the group.

“I originally became involved in blanket making when my youngest son was 16,” she said. Her son was very sick, she said, and he was in the hospital for long periods of time.

“This is the blanket that was made for him when they thought he was terminal. I had to steal it off his couch last night. He still has it...It is well-tattered, well-loved. It still provides comfort. His blanket was made by a volunteer. We don't know who it was.”

Morris said that experience inspired her to make blankets for charity, and eventually to start a knitting group in Cheney. The Twisted Sisters Knit On formed this summer with 13 members, mostly staff at the care center along with residents, friends and family.

They set a goal of making six blankets by October to donate to Project Warm-Up, a program that pays for supplies like yarn and needles, then distributes warm blankets, sweaters and other supplies to people in need.

“They go to homeless shelters,” she said. “They go to childrens' charities. They go to hospitals. They go to nursing homes. They go overseas to the troops.”

The group grew to around 40 members, and 13 blankets and a table full of baby goods were completed.

Tom Ulvin accepted the blankets on behalf of Terry Wallace, the Project Warm-Up representative who was working with the Sisters.

“It's so exciting. I get to load all of this in the back of my truck and take it back to the old YMCA building there in Spokane,” Ulvin said, thanking the women for their work. He said the goods would be distributed to people in Spokane County.

After the ceremony, Morris said the group would continue to meet one Saturday a month.

“There's enough interest in it from the community that they want us to keep doing this. So we're going to do this,” she said.

The group is open to everyone, she said, and there are experienced knitters to teach the uninitiated. For more information contact Morris at [email protected] or at 235-6196 ext. 103.

Becky Thomas can be reached at [email protected].