Have You Bought A Knitting Pattern From Ukraine Today?
You don’t knit? That’s not the point.
Many people are reserving bombed out Airbnb’s in Ukraine, not because they have a yen for vacationing amidst rubble with a side of air raid sirens. Scheduling a Ukrainian Airbnb you never intend to use is a way of putting cash into the pockets of the owners of the property, even if the Russians have destroyed the once-lovely accommodation.
Thankfully, the world has mobilized to respond to the crisis in Ukraine, but some of us in the West look to do more than post sunflowers on social media and donate to aid organizations, important as those symbolic and real efforts are.
We recognize that we owe a debt to Ukraine we can never repay in kind.
The people of Ukraine are sacrificial lambs held hostage by a ruthless tyrant who holds the threat of nuclear annihilation over us. Western powers cannot give him the smack down he deserves because of the type of ruthless and dangerous action he displayed this week. We are still reeling from his ploy of playing loosey-goosey with a nuclear power plant. That he would even risk firing on its administration building shows the risk involved in a no-fly-zone or boots on the ground response.
So, we must stand by and watch the slaughter in Ukraine that keeps the rest of the world safe but hugely unsettled and dismayed.
And don’t even bother complaining to me about your plummeting stock portfolio or pain at the pump. Tell it to a Ukrainian mother hoping she’ll make it to the border before her feet give out, her baby dies of exposure, or the Russians catch up with her.
So, about those knitting patterns on Ravelry and Etsy?
Don’t click on a different article because you wouldn’t know a knitting needle from a pogo stick. I’m not asking you to knit a sweater or sew on a button.
In happier times, many Ukrainians, like the rest of the entrepreneurial world, posted digital content, consistent with their long history of arts and craft.
They wrote and sold music and e-books online or pursued one of my passions, designing sewing and needlework patterns and selling them on Ravelry.com or Etsy.com.
In addition to donating to aid organizations, we can, with a click of our cursor, buy this digital content without having to use it, read it, or listen to it and still put money into the accounts of these creators.
This cash will go directly to these Ukrainians artists and stay there until they access it.
You don’t have to like their content, speak their language if they’ve published an e-book, or know how to use it.
You may even know a site that sells woodworking directions or instructions on how to build something. Great. Buy it even if you’re all thumbs. The point is to get money to a Ukrainian, not to actually use their content.
You just have to sign up for an account that delivers Ukrainian digital content and buy it, then move on, as soon as you remind your loved ones to do the same. And then, the next time you have some spare change, buy from another Ukrainian maker.
As a knitter, I belong to Ravelry.com, a knitting and crochet site with hundreds of thousands of patterns and a great website (seriously, when it first came online, financial institutions wanted to copy it.) It will, among other treasures, help you find patterns by country of designer.
When I had the brainstorm to look for Ukrainian designers and buy their patterns, I saw Ravelry was a jump ahead of me. Their homepage now has a huge sunflower on it (Ukraine’s national symbol), and directions on how to find Ukrainian patterns.
I had a field day looking at 65 pages of patterns new to me because I don’t speak Russian or Ukrainian. One of the filters I use on my searches is for English language patterns only.
This search, however, was not for patterns I wanted to make, though some intrigued me. How I’d love to knit Helen because, well….
This is a pullover with a nipped in waist perfect for my daughter. But the designer, Galina Shemchuk, only writes her patterns in Russian. I clicked on her bio information and discovered she’s from Kharkov, Kharkivs’ka Oblast’, Ukraine, a city that would have meant nothing to me weeks ago, but now pops up regularly on the news. And not in a good way.
Even though I can’t follow a word of her directions, Galina’s work is personal to me now because I know where she lives, what’s happening to her city.
This is another reason why this method of supporting Ukraine is important. As essential as international aid organizations are, and we must continue to support them, they don’t give us the direct connection to those heroes who are defending freedom. Those who are models for all of us. And this is why I like this two-pronged approach to aid.
Here’s how you can join in.
If you don’t know a site with Ukrainian digital content, go to Ravelry.com or Etsy.com. Select a username and password. On Ravelry, click the link to “patterns by Ukrainian designers) and it will open up a search of 65 pages, at last count, of needlework from Ukraine. Sweaters for adults and children, hats, scarves, toys, doilies. Click on any one of them-if you don’t knit or crochet, it doesn’t matter because you won’t use the pattern.
Scroll down to “buy it now,” make sure it isn’t free — unless you want to make the item (free won’t help the designer), and Ravelry will take you to the page for your payment information.
Since the idea is to give the designer your money, you don’t have to download the pattern, buy yarn or whatnot.
Buy as many patterns as you can manage. They cost a few dollars, none more than ten. If you can afford more than one, spread the wealth around and buy from page one, page fifteen, or page fifty. Or, if you feel like being a big spender, buy one of each. There’s also a box to leave a message for the designer.
Or, go to Etsy.com, sign up if you’re not a member and put Ukraine in the search box.
Look for a seller of digital content because obviously nobody’s sending goods out of the country. This morning I saw that KiddieWiddie the Ukrainian owner of an Etsy store, previously a seller of handmade goods, had posted that her customers asked how they could help. So she posted a digital picture for download of the word Ukraine in blue and yellow for various denominations up to $50 USD. Other Etsy stores had similar offerings.
This money goes directly to the owners of these accounts.
One such digital purchase may not seem like much. What’s three dollars or ten in the face of this catastrophe. But if we spread the word to buy a Ravelry or Etsy pattern for Ukraine, they can add up. A thousand people buying a pattern for three bucks makes a statement. It might mean dinner for someone. Or just encouragement to go on, that strangers in the rest of the world are with them.
Give your big bucks to the international aid organizations and your pocket change to individual designers.
Let’s make it a groundswell and let our governments know we support their efforts to back the people of Ukraine. We owe them.
Slava Ukraine.
