Proud to be from Pittsburgh: Tree of Life blankets

OAKMONT, Pa. — The stacks of hand-knitted squares grow taller by the day inside Sandra Donatelli's yarn store in Oakmont. They come from all over the world, along with cards that bring readers to tears.

"You can see the love that everybody has," Donatelli said.

These beautiful squares can take eight to 10 hours to make and are being knitted into blankets that will be donated to the Tree of Life Synagogue.

The mass shooting there in October killed 11 innocent people and left Pittsburghers, including 9-year-old Eliana Wellman, traumatized.

"She saw the news coverage and it shattered her," Wellman's mother, Vanessa Picard, said.

Eliana only stopped crying when her parents wrapped her in her blanket, or "baba."

"As a parent, we just didn't know what to do -- at all," Picard said. "She said that she just wished everyone that was hurting had a baba that could hug them."

That's how the blanket project was born.

"I sat up most of the first night making the first square," Picard said. "My idea was just one blanket and getting enough friends to help me finish the one, and Natalie said, 'Oh, no. This is much bigger than that.’"

Natalie Belmont, manager of Yarns By Design, was right.

"We have over 1,000," Belmont said. "Well over 1,000. These could mean 40 to 50 blankets."

Belmont said she hopes something as simple as a blanket can inspire a positive change.

"Total love," she said, "to show people that we care."

Cox Media Group